I forgot how incredible Macbeth is.
Even without the dozen or so quotes that have infiltrated the English lexicon of clichés, the work is rife with immediately recognizable themes and motivations. With no Macbeth, there is no Game of Thrones, no House of Cards, no Dune.
This is the ultimate royal court drama of intrigue, ambition, murder, and guilt. There is a red string on a collaged corkboard from every modern work of ‘ambitious hero to paranoid tyrant’ narrative, thumbtacked to this play. “Out damned spot”, “Is this a dagger before me?” “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble”, “something wicked this way comes” have all gone on to be shorthand for deeply conflicting emotions and settings literature has cribbed from.
Hell, how many other films and plays just title themselves after lines lifted from Macbeth? It stands, in my opinion, on the same shelf with Hamlet and Romeo + Juliet as the greatest expressions of poetic introspection in human history.
So how did Richmond Shakespeare do?
I had the pleasure of catching the show on opening night. Opening night is a blessing and a curse for the company bringing this masterpiece to life – and the reviewer. On one hand, the abundance of nervous energy an actor relies upon to animate their characters is in ready supply. On the other hand, there can be a tendency towards safety – to hide behind the lyrical, bouncy tempo of Shakespeare and deliver a proclamation of pretty words – pablum without intention. Readers of this column know by now, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. There’s just so much meaning in every line. Taking the time to decode Shakespeare’s subtext and play the emotion, not the lyricism, of the text is the test to pass.
I believe this is always the curse of performing The Bard anywhere. The writing is just way too good. The gorgeousness of the prose is too easy to lean on. While I feel there may have been some evidence of this in this performance, there’s another thing about good actors. They can get better right before your eyes, in real time.
I was able to watch the Richmond Shakespeare players upshift their performances, gear by gear, until they reached cruising speed just after intermission. I’m sure what I witnessed was a product of the moment of beginning – and won’t be a feature in any upcoming dates. Sometimes a thing just needs to hit its stride. And that’s where this review begins.
Our leads, the Thane Macbeth and his lady, played by James Murphy and Marie Lucas, came loaded for bear.
I have drooled over James’ work before in these columns, as Cyrano de Bergerac, and ironically, as Shakespeare himself in Born With Teeth. He has a way of transcending the words and giving them meaning in gesture, posture, and wit. He finds the humor in a missive as well as gravity in a over-referenced monologue. When the character you are playing has been parodied to death for four hundred years, finding a way to present it in a unique manner is the challenge. James goes with a naturalism that’s refreshing and relatable. Where there is a sense of power about the man, there also exists a lamb being manipulated to the slaughter. Macbeth is not all guile and ambition. He is insecure, goaded, and jealous of his opportunity. James gives all of this.
I have been a fan of Ms. Lucas since seeing her as Caroline in Firehouse Theatre’s Detroit 67 almost exactly a year ago. I was very excited to see how she’d handle one of the most famous and coveted roles in literature. Lady Macbeth doesn’t start off fiendish and conniving. She’s genuinely happy for her husband’s victory, safety, and return from battle with honors and new titles. She allows the thought of treason and murder to metastasize right in front of our eyes, getting carried away with the thought of power and status. Lucas made short of pinning the fleeting arc deftly. I believed the turn in conscience like Skyler White seeing the pile of millions. She decides who she wants to be and what she’s willing to do to realize herself.
The heel-turn of Macbeth is expected – it’s what the play is about. I’ve seen versions of Lady Macbeth enter stage right a villain, a Disney stepmother, the demon on a shoulder. I believe Marie Lucas put her “moment before the moment” onstage for us to notice how easy it is to lose yourself while pursuing greedy ends. She showed how all of us can become monsters if we entertain the devil. Her subsequent snowballing of sins worked in matched intensity to her panicky remorse and eventual loss of self. Never once was there an unreasonable leap requested of the audience to chart her path. She laid out the journey of this iconic character so easily drawn with clumsy strokes, with fine attention to her humanity.
Charlie Raintree’s Duncan (and his post-Duncan’s death double casting as Caithness) were the right amount of genial, unsuspecting, and generous as the former, and wrathfully commanding, as the latter. Some roles are just fun to watch. This was one.
Patrick Rooney and Adam Valentine, Banquo and MacDuff, respectively, matched James Murphy’s naturalism, which I might add is imperative for James’ portrayal to work as well as it did. I was convinced these people worked and fought together, that they had each other’s backs. The ensemble cohesion lifted the protagonist.
Cole Metz always seems like he’s the person that the play should be about – he has presence. Everything I’ve seen him in benefits from his loom. Eddie Webster gets the opportunity to have the mic for a soliloquy-turned-stand-up routine that seems like SO much fun. Rachel Dilliplane’s Lady MacDuff loads the shotgun with charm. When the tragic blast of her fate explodes, the turn against Macbeth is sealed. The audience is out for his blood from this moment forward. Dilliplane has just a few pages of script to get us there. Swift work on her part. That was fun to see.
The witches – oh, the witches. I loved the “weird” body language they chose. There’s always a punctuated choice necessary for these characters. There’s so much cultural language available to reference what a witch does, sounds like, moves like etc, that there are few creases of the cryptid left to explore. Their hisses, croaks and buzzing gives no membrane between the women and the moonlit Scottish bog they inhabit. Paisley LoBue, Emma Mason, and Kendall Walker (what an all-star lineup too!) slither true and, oh, they scene they chew.
The rest of the cast elevated themselves, as I mentioned earlier, by the end of night one. Akin to a careening screensaver logo that finally gets a corner bounce. The fight choreography was much more than adequate. Making an onstage sword fight interesting in the time of big budget sword-and-sandal epics is worth applauding. The sound design was surprisingly eloquent, creating a cinematic vibe that added atmosphere in spades.
Overall, this is one of the best, surprisingly contemporarily relevant stories with Willy B.’s name on it. This is an incredible cast with some of the biggest Shakespeare nerds in town running the ship. It will only get better with each outing. If you’ve never seen Macbeth, Jesus, go. Without hesitation. If you know the tome inside and out, but want to see a curated collection of the best talent in the city, you’ve got an inspiring night ahead of you.
Main photo by Aaron Sutten
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