Another ‘Macbeth’ doesn’t cut the haggis

THREE WITCHES: (left to right) Malcom Gets, John Glover & Byron Jennings. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

MACBETH
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Jack O’Brien
Through January 12, 2014
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
150 West 65th Street
(212-239-6200), www.lct.org

By David NouNou

There should be a moratorium against any future productions of Macbeth for at least five years or till 2020. This is the third version this year alone. Earlier in the spring, there was the dreadful, hubristic one-man version with Alan Cumming set in an insane asylum and playing all the characters.  Now we have Ethan Hawke in a vanity project, with a missing Hawke in search of his Macbeth. Shakespeare certainly has had his ups and downs this year; from the brilliant authentic revivals of Twelfth Night and Richard III with Mark Rylance currently playing at the Belasco to the abysmal, soon-to-be closing Romeo and Juliet with Orlando Bloom; and now with this misguided and misdirected atrocity by Jack O’Brien.

Lord, spare us from false prophets and pretentious “visionary” directors who think they have new ideas to infuse into classic Shakespeare for new audiences. Sitting through this version of Macbeth, one can’t help but stumble upon a myriad of questions and on top of the list is: What made Ethan Hawke think he could play the Thane of Cawdor? Why was Lady Macbeth in Givenchy-inspired costumes?  What were Grizabella, Jennyanydots, Skimbleshanks, and Rumpleteazer from Cats doing in Macbeth?  Why were a lot of the scenes acted in almost total darkness?  Why were extras marching from offstage upstage to downstage offstage for no apparent reason? Why was everyone doing different accents? Why was everybody overacting, and why was the stage so full of distracting noises and special effects?

My best guess would be Jack O’Brien tried to fill the stage with as many distractions as possible so the audience would not notice that Macbeth was missing. Ethan Hawke is an intense actor from Austin, Texas and has a definite speech pattern. In the movies, his intensity works well. However, Shakespeare is a different matter. His delivery of Macbeth sounded like he was phonetically breaking down the script. As for Anne-Marie Duff’s Lady Macbeth, due to her lack of stage presence and the absence of Lady M’s ferocity, the massive Beaumont stage swallowed her whole.

There was one original idea; the three witches (usually played by women) were portrayed by three men: Byron Jennings, Malcolm Gets, and John Glover. They added to the distraction. With the exception of Brian d’Arcy James as Banquo, as for the rest of the cast, they were overwrought and might as well have well been doing a scene from the Tower of Babel, for each one had a different accent and different style. They somehow all forgot they were Scotsmen doing Macbeth.

We’ve seen so many Shakespearean productions that spend too much time, effort and money trying to put a “spin” on the Bard to bring in new audiences, and this rarely works.  Here, we are bludgeoned by hokey, horror-film-style sound effects, over-the-top, high-tech lighting, and characters running around in ridiculous costumes like something out of a Duran Duran video on MTV circa 1983. As the current twin Broadway productions in repertory have shown us, the classics of Shakespeare work best when they are performed as written. Otherwise, the richness of Shakespeare’s language and narrative gets mired in gimmickry.

SOMETHING ‘WICKED’ THIS WAY COMES: (left to right) Ethan Hawke, Daniel Sunjata, Richard Easton & cast in ‘Macbeth.’ Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 25, 2013
Reviewed at  press performance on November 24, 2013