DC audiences like to read politics into staged plays, and there is much to extrapolate from Macbeth, “The Scottish Play” (as thespians and the superstitious like to call it), in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s latest production, featuring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma.
Due to Fiennes’ request that it be in the “cocoon of Macbeth’s mind” and “experienced outside the normative realms of the theatre” according to STC’s Asides, the production was moved to a space in the industrial district in DC’s Northeast, leading theatre-goers to see a bit of the city’s grittier side (and navigate a bit of vexing logistics). A prelude to MacBeth’s own maddening, perhaps?
Fiennes and Varma are no doubt key draws, but this Simon Godwin-directed production also has some peculiar timing that merits attention. People and politics are in turmoil — inner and outer turmoil. And the “war zone” that it is creating is as much a torture of our minds as Macbeth has in his own restless agony.
The play itself is as chilling a spectacle as The Bard intended it to be. Maybe the weird sisters and their cryptic predictions stirred the havoc, but Macbeth was hardly an ambitionless pacifist. As seen in the earliest scene, he is first and foremost a soldier.
And in this version, it is particularly illuminating to see exceptionally talented performers acting Macbeth’s most perplexing (perhaps arcane?) lines; understanding dawns on the audience for the peripheral as well as pivotal scenes, and character nuances are more pronounced. Varma’s Lady Macbeth is especially poignant, and Steffan Rhodri‘s Banquo especially haunting.
The play in brief: Lady Macbeth goads her husband into murdering the King. And then, after Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness and kills herself. Later, Macbeth must pay for his own bloodthirst and treachery.
“It is a tale… full of sound and fury,” as Shakespeare himself writes within it, that offers cautions of false loyalty; hallucinations of mightiness and indestructibility; betrayal of self and others; and blood, lots of blood.
It shows how those who crave it can — and will — scheme to grasp at power. How conscience can eat away at mental health, and how communities and nations are torn apart through violence.
And it offers a line that embodies the dichotomy of politics today — the head and the heart — and proves that they can work together, for better or worse: Says Malcolm (Ewan Black), “Dispute it like a man.” Returns Macduff (Ben Turner), “I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man.”
Macbeth is mostly sold out. Tickets will not be available for purchase at the venue, and there will not be additional dates added. However, small numbers of seats may become available for sale on the website. Additionally, STC has partnered with TodayTix to offer a limited number of $20 tickets for every performance.
