Word: macbeth
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THERE ARE LOTS OF SWORDS in this Macbeth. Daggers, too. Those crazy Scots eat with them, greet with them, play with them and, of course, kill with them. Swords everywhere you turn, and you can never be sure who will show up next with one, friend or foe, ghost or wife...
...elements of the Murphy style have carried into this Boston Shakespeare Company production, most notably a preference for stylized gesture and loose body movement that suggests an undercurrent of sexuality. From Shepard to Shakespeare is quite a leap, however; and whereas the looseness provides some fine moments (a giddy Macbeth sprawling pitifully on the ground while plotting Banquo's death), the stylization produces tiresome histrionics (Macbeth: "O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife." Macbeth clutches head, presumable to show us scorpions) redolent of countless mediocre productions of Shakespeare. Most of the BSC actors lack the intensity to pull...
Sexuality and swords--an ancient metaphor, and one that becomes tiresome about halfway through the evening. Yet it helps create a shaky, violent world in which fact and fiction, murder and loyalty, blur dangerously. When the king's party enter Macbeth's castle to spend the fateful night, young Donalbain screams and falls to the ground with a dagger in his side--just kidding, of course. Banquo's ghost strolls in and pours himself a nice, long draught (rather bloody, actually) at Macbeth's banquet. The messenger warning Lady Macduff of impending doom tries to seduce her after her moody...
This technique works to good effect towards the end of the play, with paranoia lurking deep within Birnam Wood. Nothing can make up, however, for the dreariness of the first half; for despite Murphy's good intentions, this Macbeth is submerged--swords and a few actors not-withstanding--by its company...
Good news, though, comes in the form of Kirsten Giroux as Lady Macbeth. With legerity and a crystalline voice, she appears at first like a sweet '20s flapper and turns savage with frightening speed, manipulating her husband with thinly disguised sexuality. But the unmitigated passion which drives her can go just as easily the other way, into fear and insanity, and she crumbles beautifully, back into the flapper and beyond into girlhood. Searing her hand on a candle flame, she tragically reminds us of an inner power that once tried to unsex her but never succeeded...