Commentary: Shakespeare's portrait of an insecure, paranoid tyrant makes this the perfect time for ‘Macbeth'

Los Angeles Times

19-02-2025

'Macbeth' may be Shakespeare's most transfixing tragedy, but its dark magic often fizzles in the theater.
The stage is littered with 'Macbeth' disasters. Other plays may have an equally bad track record, but this tragedy's failure seems to take us more by surprise. The epic scale of 'King Lear' can engender reluctance in theatergoers. But the prospect of 'Macbeth,' with its supernatural special effects and frenetic plot never stopping for breath, sets one's pulse racing.
The tragedy has witchcraft, sexual mind games, regicide, demonic communication, foul murders and fearsome battle scenes. Shakespeare deploys his poetry like kerosene on an already raging fire.
My imagination was inflamed by reading 'Macbeth' in high school. Looking back I can say it was the start of a lifelong love affair with Shakespeare. But productions of the play have rarely lived up to expectations.
Theatrical lore holds that it's unlucky to utter the word 'Macbeth' inside a theater. But the real curse of 'the Scottish play' is that it's damnably difficult to pull off onstage.
Heresy to say it, but 'Macbeth' might actually work better on screen, as I've argued before. Film can more easily encompass the play's supernatural realm without losing sight of Macbeth's psychological journey. The camera's ability to sweep in for a closeup of the protagonist's thoughts and then move out for a wide shot of the surrounding scene is especially useful in a play in which the theatrical and dramatic dimensions can be in competition with each other.
Filmed versions of stage productions, such as Simon Godwin's 2024 'Macbeth,' starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, try to make the most of both mediums. Occult pyrotechnics and bloody business of all kinds are not allowed to obscure the interior shifts of the shifty Macbeths.
An even better example is the acclaimed London production with David Tennant and Cush Jumbo that was filmed during its run at the Donmar Warehouse and recently made available at select cinemas. While other people were watching the Super Bowl, I caught one of the few L.A. screenings and am fairly certain I had the more thrilling experience.
Max Webster's streamlined production seamlessly integrated stage and screen for a modern yet timeless 'Macbeth.' For those in the audience at the Donmar Warehouse, headphones were worn to provide an immersive sound experience. The actors were able to speak in confidential tones, not having to worry about projecting to the back rows.
In the cinema, headphones obviously weren't required because film automatically brings us into a conspiratorial intimacy. Tennant and Jumbo took full advantage, savoring the language and the psychology in equal measure. Lines were spoken as if newly coined from the hyperactive minds of Macbeth and his wife.
Tennant and Jumbo are experienced Shakespeareans. They have both scaled the heights of Hamlet in high-profile productions, but this 'Macbeth' is their masterpiece. Tennant, a Scotsman who wears a kilt with glorious swagger, was born for the role. Jumbo brings a humanizing clarity to Lady Macbeth without in the least compromising her character's fiendish side.
Not having attended the Donmar Warehouse production in person, I can't say it's the best stage version I've ever seen. But if I were to ever see anything remotely approaching this level in the theater, I could end my career a contented critic.
I didn't expect the new production of 'Macbeth' at A Noise Within to compare to what I had just experienced. Directed by Andi Chapman, the revival, which features a largely Black cast, doesn't have the same resources or objectives.
Chapman, who directed an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel 'The Bluest Eye' at A Noise Within in 2023 and has cast her 'Macbeth' with some of the same actors, is working to expand cultural access to Shakespeare's work. Her ensemble brings a range of performers to Shakespearean roles they might not be considered for in traditional, stuffy productions.
But Chapman is also thinking through the relationship of film and theater in a 'Macbeth' that has some of the hallmarks of a horror movie. Nicholas Santiago's projections give eerie embellishment to Stephanie Kerley Schwartz's scenic design, so that the basic outline of Inverness Castle suggests at moments Dracula's Transylvanian crypt.
Chapman's boldest interpretive strokes are directed toward the plot. The production begins with Lady Macbeth (Julanne Chidi Hill) clutching what seems to be a dead baby, planting the seed that the Macbeths are motivated in part by childless grief.
Kamal Bolden, who plays Macbeth, doesn't have the military glamour that Denzel Washington brought to the role in Joel Coen's 2022 film. Bolden suggests not so much a decorated officer but a fierce soldier, who's fighting more for survival than for reputation.
The mysterious third murderer involved in the killing of Banquo (Michael Boatman) is revealed here to be one of the Weird Sisters. This shadowy figure assists Banquo's son, Fleance (Noemi Avalos), in escaping the same end. The witches are thus active instruments in the fate that befalls Macbeth, making him somewhat more of a puppet of their otherworldly mischief than a closer reading of the text might bear out. (Shakespeare subtly suggests that the witches' prophecy inciting Macbeth is an echo of his own unconscious desires.).
The witches erupt in ritual dance moves (choreographed by Indira Tyler) that transport us far away from medieval Scotland. Where we are exactly is an open question, but there seems to be an attempt to bring the characters nearer to the audience's contemporary experience.
Unfortunately, as the action grows bloodier, the acting grows more melodramatic. Shakespeare's play assumes the shrieks and shrill cries of a B-movie.
But in both the Donmar Warehouse's Platonic ideal production of 'Macbeth' and the far less lofty staging at A Noise Within, I couldn't help tuning in to what the tragedy had to say about tyrants whose reign of terror precipitates their own demise.
Shakespeare's plays have an uncanny ability to reflect our world back to us. Rereading 'Hamlet' after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, I noticed just how prominently the fear of political rebellion pervades the play.
Encountering 'Macbeth' during a time when the federal government appears to be under attack from within, I watched with heightened horror Macbeth's descent into paranoid butchery after he murders Duncan and assumes the throne.
'To be thus is nothing/But to be safely thus,' Macbeth observes, noting the rub of his illegitimate power grab. To defend his shattering of the rules, he will have to 'cancel and tear to pieces that great bond' that makes civilization possible in the first place.
Good is not assured victory over evil in Shakespeare, though wickedness sets in motion those forces that will hasten the end of its ride. But until then, the casualties will mercilessly mount. Banquo will be made a ghost and Lady Macduff and her children will be slaughtered in their castle.
'Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/Upon a dwarfish thief,' a thane observes in the final act. He has already noticed that those Macbeth commands 'move only in command/Nothing in love' — a sign of a dictator's imminent demise.
By the time Lady Macbeth's is done in by her own conscience, Macbeth no longer has the capacity to feel sorrow. Life has become for him 'a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.'
'Macbeth' is not, to say the least, a reassuring play. But it does remind us that when we obliterate the social pact, we destroy the very thing that gives our lives meaning. As Shakespeare keenly understood, when the individual is allowed to trounce the collective, the result isn't freedom but barbarism.