According to theater lore, uttering the word "Macbeth" inside a theater will bring bad luck or even doom to a production. Inexplicable mishaps have plagued performances after the title of Shakespeare's tragedy of ambition and manipulation slipped from the lips of some unknowing actor. As a result of 500 years of superstition, a euphemism, "the Scottish play," is now used instead when an actor or director wants to recount his or her exploits inside a theater.
However, when actually producing the Scottish play itself, there is no avoiding saying "Macbeth" on stage, thus ensuring a curse for the performance. The Rude Mechanicals' production of "Macbeth" ran Friday and Saturday, and is no exception to the curse of Macbeth. They do, however, get an A for effort.
Director Thom Ferlisi said he wanted to go in a different direction with his production, giving the three witches (of "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble" fame) a greater role in the outcome of the play. His production raises questions about whether or not it was ambition that ruined Macbeth, or if the witches were controlling his actions.
"Thom told me that he wanted to do a play about women manipulating men into destruction," said Morgan Richardson, a graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences who played Lady Macbeth. "It sounded like a good idea to me."
"That's also why the actors who played the witches played all the minor roles," Ferlisi added, "because they were controlling everything."
While this was an excellent idea for adding a twist to a production that's familiar to AU theatergoers, the way it was executed in this case was a tad confusing at times. However, Ferlisi's choice to tack on a scene from "The Tempest" to allow the witches to execute the last scene of the show worked well, given the direction of the Rude Mechanicals' production.
Several members of the cast absolutely shined, although most were perhaps in over their heads performing complicated Shakespearean text. Though they performed with scripts in hand, this crutch often became an obstacle between performer and audience, as actors would seemingly read from them, not act out their lines or convey their meaning. Notable performances included the incredibly charismatic Richardson as Lady Macbeth and Chris Smith as the virtuous Macduff.
True to form, the curse of Macbeth took its toll on the Rude Mechanicals. Eight days before the production opened, Sean Bartley, a sophomore in the CAS's Department of Performing Arts and president of AU Players who was originally cast as Macbeth, and Rich Ching, also a sophomore in DPA and originally cast as Prince Malcolm, quit the production without notice.
"We played some improv games just to pass the time," said Erica LeMaster, a junior in the School of Communication who played Lennox. "They never showed up."
The cast felt, however, that the experience of losing the two crucial actors ultimately improved the performance.
"After they left, we worked harder, and I think the product turned out well in the end," said Rachel Stevens, a sophomore in SOC who played Donalbane.
The cast was shuffled, and Charlie Biscotto, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a representative in the General Assembly, was given the titular role. Given that he had just over a week to prepare for one of the most challenging parts in all of theater, he did an admirable job.
The production was understandably minimalist, as it was performed in the Woods-Brown Amphitheatre. However, the attempts to costume the actors and dress the stage made the production seem more amateur than minimalist. It is important to make a given staging situation work for the production, and medieval costumes, plastic swords and use of four painted boxes as set pieces made it seem as if Rude Mechanicals were reaching for something out of their grasp.
Part of this problem stems back to the curse that seemed to plague the cast.
"Our costumes were stolen," said Tai Spargo, a freshman in SPA who played Vanquo.
Despite all the mishaps and setbacks, Rude Mechanicals proved once again that "Macbeth," as well as Shakespeare's complete body of work, is just as relevant today as it was when it was penned centuries ago. Ferlisi picked "Macbeth" to be the Rude Mechanicals' first full-length play because he wanted a show that would have mass appeal and name recognition. His reasons ran deeper than just that, however.
"[Macbeth is] intense human drama, and it's better than anything you see on TV," he said in the amphitheater, with the cast circled around him after the show's close. "No one gets their head cut off on a soap [opera]."
Biscotto, the production's lead actor, felt that there's more to Shakespeare than its highbrow language and entertainment value.
"We see the characters do what we would all do in that situation," he said. "Shakespeare talked about human nature, and that's unchanging"
