Can Shakespeare be silenced? His words, which lie at the center of our most admired poems, seem impossible to separate from his work. Most adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, when deprived of their beautiful language, often miss the mark of genius that is Shakespeare. Yet Synetic Theater attempted a silent performance of "Macbeth" and proved that it can be done.
This is the second Shakespeare play that Synetic Theatre has attempted without words. With its magnificent performance and gothic ambiance, the cast shows that the play does not necessarily need them. It comes alive in a unique blend of dance, movement and expression.
The cast and crew are clever in transforming ideas and emotions into motion and music, and that means that the plot is gracefully communicated. Madeleine Carr, a frequent actress for Synetic, commented that the audience doesn't lose the plot "because it's so beautifully performed. You don't get caught up in the words. ... people always get so caught up in the words."
For those unfamiliar with "Macbeth," the title character, played by Irakli Kavsadze, is tempted by visions of ruling the throne. His seductive and manipulative wife, played by Irina Tsikurishvili, coerces him to achieve that vision through murder. Each murder grows more gruesome than the previous. Kavsadze plays Macbeth as an insecure and highly dependent fool and Tsikurishvili epitomizes the manipulative character that is Lady Macbeth with her flaunting movements and enthralling psychotic facial expressions.
The most essential characters in this play are the malicious trio of witches, Meghan Grady, Katherine E. Hill and Philip Fletcher, who almost slither across the stage, decked in black, with scheming body language. They pop out of smoking sewers at center stage, and they scare the audience when it least expects.
Spinning across the stage in absolute frenzy is not uncommon in this two-hour dramatic piece, which shows Macbeth's true insanity. A few magnificent scenes are sure to stick in viewers' heads. Visions of the future are played out with lighting changes in slow motion and immediate freezes are so real that they are similar to a major motion picture.
The classic scene where Lady Macbeth is haunted by her own wickedness did not disappoint as the witches taunted her with gyrating and almost nauseating movements. Moreover, the murder of Macduff's family is played out in such a gruesome manner that many audience members looked away.
However, it was the costume design and makeup that made the play so unexpectedly moving. As if in a dominatrix world, black leather apparel holds fast to each actor as long chains make their way against the black stage, decorated only with silver spray paint. Black lipstick coats every lip in view, and red eyeliner is used to indicate the dead or murdered. These things make the play as wildly imaginative yet as true to the tale as possible.
Admittedly there were a few things in the play that did not work. Most annoying was the use of an exercise ball as a giant globe, which was a bit too reminiscent of Jacobs Fitness Center. In addition, without a firm knowledge of the play's plot, it might have been more difficult to determine the exact meaning of each scene. But these are all small errors in a performance that captured tragedy and gluttony in the most disturbingly captivating way.
