Macbeth @ Studio 58

Ah, the pipes! They were an integral part of the set--I never realised, until seeing this production of The Tragedie of Macbeth, how versatile pipes can be. They were climbed, swung on and Macbeth himself dealt with the death of his wife and soloquized while hanging from the network of pipes which traced the ceiling of the theatre. They were also used in lieu of swords during the battle scenes. Very appropriate, given the phallocentric nature of "the Scottish Play" itself.

There were other memorable features in Pam Johnson's set design as well: an old, rusty bathtub was the centrepiece of the production. As a starring character in the piece, it played the roles of cauldron, coffin, banquet table (buffet style), podium and yes, even of bathtub. Soldiers and noblemen would reach into this magical receptacle and emerge with bloodied hands and faces. A pipe from above leaked water which baptised Lady Macbeth's stained hands and annointed Macbeth's lifeless corpse.

The familiar phrases and cadences of Shakespeare's script emerged from the mouths of bare-chested men sporting tittilating nipple rings and women more demurely clad in shiny black bustiers. Chains and stencilled body markings were the accesorries of the evening. Nacy Tait's inspiration for these costuming decisions seems to have its source in Technoshamanism--ideally a world view which involves a mystification of technology. The set also sported ciphers and drawings in chalk which incorporated these motifs.

I always greet anachronistic stagings of Shakespeare's plays with some measure of delight. I enjoy the incongruity between the words being spoken and the people who are saying them. Yet, there is always the danger of allowing the sets and costumes to upstage the players and the acting. Studio 58's production, directed by Campbell Smith, managed to avoid such a trap for the most part.

All in all, I would call it a strong production of the notoriously unlucky play. Most of the readings of the characters were fairly traditional, despite the darkly modern set and the profusion of ripped black jeans and cutoffs. Ty Olsson believably enacted Macbeth's transformation from modest, easygoing war hero into paranoid tyrant. Jennie-Rebecca Hogan played an intriguingly dreadlocked Lady Macbeth, whose sinister, lisping rendition of the "unsex me here" soliloquy was punctuated by an upthrust pelvis and flashingly appropriate braces. The sexuality between the Macbeths was emphasised.

The witches invocations were diffused throughout the company of players, chanted to the accompaniment of various percussive instruments. I must confess that I rather missed the presence of the three witches--they are such rich, ominous figures in the play. By spreading the lines throughout the various members of the company, their presence became more supernatural or conceptual, but the concentrated power of a threefold embodiment of evil was lost. Courtenay J. Stevens doubled as a witch and Banquo, adding an interesting resonance to each of the roles he played, although the two personae he presented--reliable warrior and friend versus eldtrich sister--were distinct enough to evade confusion.

Many of the gender boundaries were crossed--Duncan was played by Jennifer Hill, while Amélie Lefebvre appeared as Fleance, the son destined to carry on Banquo's line. These choices in casting evoked a twofold response in me. On the one hand, I felt some sense of vindication--the "drag" tradition of Shakespearean theatre was carried on, but this time in favor of women in powerful roles. I also felt that these suggested interesting undercurrents of eroticism between some rather unexpected characters--Banquo and Fleance, for instance. Given that impression, I actually wished that some suggestions of that eroticism could have been incorporated into the interactions of more characters who were played by the same sex. But then, that's just my personal preference. The production was dedicated to AIDS victims.

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