On November 1, 2024 I went to the Fringe ArtSpace in downtown Orlando to watch an Orlando Shakes production of Macbeth starring the UCF 3rd Year Masters of Fine Arts company. I saw the advertisement for it via some synergistic advertisement by Opera Orlando, who had just put on Verdi's Macbeth. There were only three public performances so I bought a ticket as quickly as I could.
It was an interesting minimalist production with some unique staging decisions that made it seem really metaphorical and almost dreamlike at times. I wouldn't go nearly so far to as to call it avant garde but it definitely had an experimental feel. It was an intimate performance with a small cast in the 130 odd seat ArtSpace.
Overall I thought it was really good and the acting by the ensemble was solid and Colby Bell (Macbeth) and Lauren Schulke (Lady Macbeth) were exceptional. I also thought Jacob Romeo (Macduff) and Nathan Olmeda (Duncan and others), in much smaller roles, were very good.
This is going to round out my exploration of Macbeth and some of its versions, though I still have some more Shakespeare coming down the pike in the next few months.
For my previous Shakespeare pieces:
Background
Macbeth is a 1606 play by William.... You know what? This is my fourth piece on one of the most famous works in English Literature so I'm just going to breeze past this part. If you want an in depth discussion of the play, see my earlier essay Enter Four Murderers - M4cbeth .
The Orlando Shakes production was directed by Irwin Appel with Assistant Director Lorena Cohen, Choreographer Christine McCarthy, Set/Costume Designer Ann Sheffield, Sound Designer George Hamrah, and Fight Director Tony Simotes.
It starred Colby Bell, Lauren Schulke, Jacob Romeo, Nathan Olmeda, Paige Mason, Zachery Racine, Gabriella Headley, Dominique Marshall, and Tyler Stevens.
General Production Stuff
This show was only 80 minutes long and was cut down very skillfully. I'm honestly kind of baffled at how such a short version could manage to feel so complete. At this point I feel pretty comfortable saying that I know this play really well and I didn't feel like anything was missing.
Hecate was cut, but she basically always gets cut; in the four films and two live theater versions of the play I've seen, she did not appear. Donalbain and Young Siward, with their whopping 15 total lines of dialogue, were also cut as well as Siward (30 lines.) Macbeth does fight and wreck an unnamed and silent character in the place where the Young Siward confrontation is, but it works just as well being a random soldier. Probably better actually given Siward's excision and the smaller scale of this production.
This production also made some smart character choices, both in terms of dramatic weight and economy, like making the wounded man who gives Duncan the initial report of the battle Macduff instead of an unnamed sergeant or having Ross talk to Macduff about the frightening omens of the night of Duncan's murder rather than to an Old Man who only appears in that scene.
A Small Cast
There were only nine actors in this, with everyone except Colby Bell (Macbeth) playing multiple speaking roles in a play with around 25 speaking parts. Despite this and the choice to frequently have characters stay onstage rather than exiting and returning (which I'll get to shortly) it was never confusing as to whether someone had had changed characters.
The most conspicuous staging decision here was the pervasive presence of what I'll call the Murdering Ministers. (They're just listed as Ensemble in the cast list.) Recall, that in Lady Macbeth's first scene she says:
Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief.
-Act 1, scene 5
In this production, actors were dressed in black and when they weren't playing speaking parts they pulled black masks over their faces. These masks didn't have eye or mouth openings, looking more like black stockings, which was honestly kind of unsettling. The black masked actors were frequently on stage in the background but came forward to envelop characters from time to time, like with Macbeth as he contemplated murder. The show's marketing poster captures the effect:
No character reacts to or speaks to them*, so the metaphysics of all this is up for debate but it very much felt like they were a manifestation of the worse angels of our nature and the darker impulses that seek to consume us. i.e. the Murdering Ministers that Lady Macbeth invoked. They even tangle together to become Macbeth's throne which was a nice touch as it maintained the show's minimalism regarding props and set pieces and also was an evocative metaphor: Macbeth sits on the throne made of his Murdering Ministers.
*In Act IV the witches do interact with three of them who at first represent whatever the witches are making in their cauldron and then they are later unmasked to become the apparitions that speak to Macbeth, but I'm not sure how metaphorical this is supposed to be. The Murdering Ministers being servants of the witches is also, I think, a valid read if maybe kind of an overly literal one. Either way I like the Murdering Ministers and the dislocating ambiguity of it all.
The Murdering Ministers added some ambiguity at the end as well. During Macbeth's final duel with Macduff, they lined up in the back of the stage and creepily twitched and contorted, J-horror style. And during Malcolm's play closing victory speech, they gathered around him and repeated the pawing that they did with Macbeth at the beginning. Their prominence at both of these theoretically triumphant moments of good overcoming evil is troubling and visually suggests the inevitable cycle of violence subtextually present in the play text, and often explicitly present in productions. (Of the films I watched, Macbeth (2015) and Macbeth (1971) were most explicit about this deeply pessimistic idea.)
Transitions
The pervasive presence of the Ministers also allowed for actors to change characters without, as I mentioned above, leaving the stage. So an actor might say their lines, then pull a mask over their head, do some Minister stuff, then take the mask off and be someone else.
The scene transitions in general happened very quickly, though they never felt rushed. The only furniture style props on stage where two long rectangular chests which would get re-arranged by the actors on the fly to suggest new locations.
These chests were also used in creative ways during character changeover. The one that sticks out to me is when Duncan, lying on one of the chests, is stabbed, falls behind it, and the Ministers raise the lid, completely obscuring him from the audience. Two scenes later in the scene transition to the castle gate, Nathan Olmeo lowered the lid and stood up as the drunken Porter. This kind of thing happened a lot and it was cool to watch.
I thought it was interesting how sometimes two separate scenes were staged simultaneously. The first that jumps to mind was when Banquo and Fleance were running from the murderers while Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had the conversation where he frets about Banquo but tells her not to worry about his plans. It had an almost cinematic cross-cutting effect. Under beating drums Banquo and Fleance ran in slow motion from their pursuers while Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were standing on the two chests, positioning them on a different elevation. This gave Lady Macbeth's frightened "You must leave this" when she's trying to get him to stop talking crazy more of a punch of futility. We can literally see that the next crime is already in motion.
The most powerful instance of this staging technique was the juxtaposition of the murder of Lady Macduff with the following scene of Malcolm testing Macduff and then Ross telling them about the murder. Lady Macduff's scene ended with her on her knees, and as the fatal blows were coming down, she and the murderers froze, her hand raised to the sky with a silent scream. She is onstage for the entirety of the next scene. Being able to see her frozen terror while the next scene played out really heightened the awfulness of the act and amplified the tragic effect.
Minimalism
This production used simple props that were often more metaphorical than literal. The wooden staffs were mostly weapons, but also used to suggest a long banquet table, and a strikingly jagged and non-diegetic frame highlighting Duncan's murder.
As I said the cast was mostly in black, but they had some accents to their costumes to help visually differentiate their characters. The three actors playing the witches threw red shawls over their shoulders to signal their transition into the weird sisters. And (probably) coincidentally, the Macbeth's were accented with green, giving them and the witches the same color palettes as in the Opera Orlando production.
Red gloves were the shorthand for bloodstained hands and this production did a really neat facsimile of Macbeth's severed head using strategically placed black clad Ministers and a red bolt of fabric.
Music
I liked how the music and sound effects were done in this production. There was a collection of instruments on the far right of the stage like floor toms, chimes, a guitar and even some horns. Any music or sound effects were performed by the actors themselves, frequently rotating in and out based on who needed to be speaking at any given time.
The production used the chimes and the ethereal sounding singing bowl to signal asides, often in combination with the non-aside-ing characters freezing in place while the speaker worked through their thoughts.
The music was used well throughout. I particularly liked how the guitar, which had been playing renaissance sounding arpeggios while Duncan congratulated Macbeth, stopped abruptly mid-arpeggio the moment Duncan said he was naming Malcolm his heir. Until it stopped, I didn't particularly note the guitar as anything other than some nice background music but the sudden silence injected a moment of great tension and reflected Macbeth's internal weather. (Actor Tyler Stevens is a solid guitar player btw.)
The use of simple but propulsive percussion and drum tempo variations created an atmosphere of intensity and escalation during Duncan's murder, Macbeth's second visit to the witches, and the final fight with Macduff. It wasn't elaborate, but it was very effective.
There's also several scenes where the cast sings what sounds like a drinking song to honor the king, culminating in the line "Is not King [name] in the right?" I don't know if it was written for this production or is a traditional tune. I didn't recognize it and I don't remember enough of the lyrics to easily find it online.
Character Stuff
Macbeth
I mentioned briefly at the beginning but it's worth reiterating that I think Colby Bell gave a very excellent performance as Macbeth. Early on he captured the nervous energy of a man at war with himself over something he really does want to do and he really sold Macbeth's escalation into boiling, nihilistic anger.
I liked that despite how much of a wreck Macbeth was right after the murder, Bell didn't oversell it. He was twitchy and barely holding it together but he threaded the needle in showing his mental state to the audience but not going so big that the other characters would have definitely noticed.
He had a lot of really good line reads and you could see Macbeth's wheels turning even when he wasn't revealing his thoughts in an aside. Two standouts for me were when he first sees Macduff after the murder and his last conversation with Banquo.
The first was when Macbeth made his entrance after the drunken porter lets Macduff and Lennox in. In the text of the play Lennox greets him with "Good morrow, noble sir." And Macbeth replies "Good morrow, both." Bell played Macbeth as edgy and a little distracted and he started his line having only registered Lennox but after the word "morrow" he saw Macduff, and he had a slight hesitation before saying "both" with an inflection that, while subtle, clearly portrayed: "...shit." You could almost feel his stomach drop. (This was also a good moment dramatically because it immediately established that Macbeth immediately recognizes Macduff as someone he needs to be wary of.)
In Macbeth's final conversation with Banquo in Act 3 scene 1, this production had Fleance enter right after Macbeth bids Banquo "adieu." Bell's eyes flicked from Fleance to Banquo and after a slight pause he gave his line "Goes Fleance with you?" You could practically see him thinking "Wait...They'll be in the same place. Now's the time."
These were both small things, but I think good acting is often an aggregate of small decisions.
Bell also had some really good moments of non-verbal acting. After Duncan's murder this exchange happens:
Banquo
In the great hand of God I stand, and thence Against the undivulged pretense I fight
Of treasonous malice.
Macduff
And so do I.
All
So all.
When Macbeth says "So all" he's just a hair behind everyone else and Bell looked discomfited and visibly swallowed, like this extra bit of performative hypocrisy made him queasy.
I also really liked how after he takes Duncan's hand for the last time after Lady Macbeth has steeled his resolve, he gave her the briefest glance as he exited with the king. It was only a telling look from the perspective of the audience who heard he and his wife's earlier conversation; like in the post murder scene, the moment wasn't overplayed and none of the characters would have thought anything of it.
There were so many of these little moments but the last one I want to highlight is after Banquo's murder when the cast is singing the kingship song, now to Macbeth. When they hit the line "Is not Macbeth in the right?" Bell had a grim thousand yard stare as he half-heartedly sang. It was a purely visual prefiguration of his later line:
I am in bloodStepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
And as a bonus the way he jerked his arm away from Lady Macbeth here was a sad contrast to their earlier intimacy. He's pulling away from her just as he's cutting himself off from his humanity.
Lady Macbeth
I also really liked Lauren Schulke as Lady Macbeth, in a very intense performance of barely contained mania. To be honest, I was initially a little unsure about it at first as the intensity was at almost 10 right out of the gate, but it became clear very quickly that it was highly motivated.
In her first appearance she was a coiled spring, with wild eyes that somehow also made her seem fragile. She gave off an air of instability, like she was frayed and on the edge of breakdown, and she nearly did break down into tears reading Macbeth's letter. During her "milk of human kindness" monolog, though, there was a moment when she gathered up the bottom of her dress and cradled it against a now stricken face and it clicked; she's grieving the loss of an infant, and a recent one. This small moment reframed her barely holding it together performance as a manifestation of terrible grief.
Grief comes up again later, after Macbeth says "We will proceed no further in this business." She harangues him and then says this:
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
They were embracing, and as soon as she said "I have given suck' Macbeth's head shot up and he looked at her with immense compassion before kissing her on the head while she finished her line. He thinks she's reliving the loss and he's trying to comfort her, which makes her famously horrific following line even more horrific:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Macbeth reacted with complete shock and horror, amplified by the contrast of what he thought she was saying with where she was actually going.
Her grief gave a different cast to her feeling of betrayal at Macbeth's change of heart; it was like an "I can't take one more thing going wrong, one more more thing I've hoped for being suddenly taken away from me."
I also liked how Schulke played the aftermath of Duncan's murder. Her mania, as it started to spill over her facade of control, was both convincing and recognizably of the same stuff as her earlier sublimated frenzy. I found the scene where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, covered in blood, hear the knocking on the castle gate almost unbearably tense on the strength of Schulke's performance.
An instance of good non-verbal acting from Lady Macbeth was during Macbeth's speech justifying why he summarily executed Duncan's servants. When he started she had a trembling nervous energy and it kind of read as if she wasn't sure if he was going to be able to sell it and her swoon, where her eyes stayed open the entire time felt like a misdirection. It happened right as Macbeth was getting histrionic and I think he even grabbed one of the onlookers, so it seemed to me like she was afraid he was overselling it and decided to create a distraction.
I thought overall Schulke a powerful and compelling performance.
Schulke also played the minor role of Seyton, the servant who tells Macbeth that his wife is dead. This was a nice touch and I liked how in the aftermath of this news when Macbeth is giving his "Out brief candle" speech, she slowly let down her hair, like maybe Macbeth was seeing his wife in his mind.
Macduff and Duncan (et al)
As I said in the opening, I also thought Jacob Romeo as Macduff gave a really good performance.
The obvious standout scene for Romeo was when Macduff hears his family has been murdered. It would probably be tempting to go really huge and over the top in this moment but he didn't and the scene was all the better for it.
This is more of a production thing, but I also liked that Romeo also played the apparition that warns Macbeth to "Beware Macduff."
And honorable mention to Nathan Olmeda as Duncan / Porter / Doctor / Murderer who was really good in all four roles, but particularly as Duncan.
"WTF audience?" Sidebar
This little diversion isn't really about this production but it is about the audience. There were a few spots where some of the audience chuckled or laughed at really strange things.
Like after Macbeth said regarding Duncan's framed servants, "O, yet I do repent me of my fury that I did kill them" and a surprised Macduff says "Wherefore did you so?" a not insignificant part of the audience laughed. This was a tense moment and was not even remotely played as a joke.
This happened several times and I really don't have any idea what they were laughing at. And ironically, no one laughed at the potentially funny Duncan moment where he laments what a bad judge of character he is regarding the treacherous Thane of Cawdor, saying "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust" and then immediately turns and greets the new Thane of Cawdor (i.e. Macbeth) with effusive praise and statements of trust. Admittedly it was not particularly framed as a joke, but at least it's kind of grimly funny.
There were also laughs when Macbeth returned to the stage after the theater wearing bright red gloves to represent his bloody hands. In a real world sense it was a little bit odd looking, but in a minimalist performance it totally worked and it sort of irked me that the chuckles broke the mood in another intense moment. Like we've already accepted that quarterstaffs can double as a banquet table and that Gabriella Headley is Ross until she puts on a red shawl at which point she's the first witch so it's not like literalism/realism is a priority here.
It honestly really annoyed me when it happened at an odd time in the sleepwalking scene, which I think did a real disservice to Lauren Schulke's impressive performance. Like, dipshits, this is not a funny scene.
I've encountered stuff like this before where an audience will chuckle knowingly at a famous line they recognize, even if in the context of the drama a laugh doesn't make sense. I realize that it can be hard to engage with something really well known like "To be or not to be" which out of context is now a cliche but I wish people would make more effort to meet the material and the performances on their own terms.
Gallimaufry
I liked the ambiguity in the opening fight, an event not in the play text. At first I just assumed it was the Cawdor's rebellion being put down but all the black clad figures immediately pulling their Minister masks on and the absence of Macbeth and Banquo made me think it was also metaphorically gesturing at the innate violence in men. During the fight there was no indication of who was who or which side the identically dressed combatants were on. It doesn't matter, the violence is all. And these Murdering Ministers' ominous presence at the end with Malcolm reinforced this.
There was a neat staging decision Act 1, scene 3 where Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches. Macbeth and Banquo looked out at the audience and so did the witches. They never looked directly at each other on stage, though they obviously diegetically were looking at each other. This gave them a sense of metaphorical distance and allowed the audience to have a full on view of the actors' facial performances.
I liked Macduff's entrance amidst pounding drums at the beginning where, in the place of the wounded Sergeant, he runs to tell Duncan about the battle. Romeo was running in place but it didn't look strange or silly and it really gave the impression that he was covering a lot of ground.
Macbeth's second visit to the witches was really well done and I like how intense the music, the acting, and the blocking made the scene. It definitely did not look like happy fun times for Macbeth and I especially liked how after he heard the "No man of woman born" prophecy and was feeling pretty good about himself the witches slammed him down onto one of the chests and the third apparition, the witches, and the Ministers loomed threateningly over him.
During Macbeth's duel with Macduff, this production did something I always really like where Macbeth is confidently beating Macduff's ass until Macduff says "Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped" and this freezes Macbeth and becomes the turning point in the fight.
I thought it was a nice touch that in Macbeth's final entrance after Malcolm's forces begin their march on Dunsinane, he is not wearing the royal cape he's had on since he his ascension. A small visual sign that, though he doesn't know it yet, it's already over.
Though it didn't last long, I liked that before the play started the only things on stage were the two chests next to each other with the wooden staffs jutting out at angles that made it look a bit like a jagged crown. (i.e the set picture I used earlier)
I liked at the start of Act 2 when Macbeth had a playful moment with Fleance. The boy was screwing around with his father's sword as he exited and ran into Macbeth who smiled and did a little head fake, briefly joining Fleance's game. This is before Macbeth has killed Duncan and it was a nice way to show that he and Fleance know and seem fond of each other. It makes his later ordering of Fleance's murder more awful.
Conclusion
I really liked this and I was thinking about it for a while after I left the theater. Hats off to everyone involved. (Except the weirdos in the audience who laughed at inappropriate times.)
This looks to be it for me on Macbeth media, at least until some other interesting version catches my fancy.
And so Macbeth's knell is knolled.
-m
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