‘Macbeth’– Written by William Shakespeare; Directed by Christopher V. Edwards; Featuring Brooke Hardman, Jade Guerra, Jesse Hinson, Jennie Israel, Brian Demar Jones, Claire Mitchell, Vince Nguyen, Amanda Esmie Reynolds, Omar Robinson, Chingwe Padraig Sullivan, Dennis Trainor Jr.; Scenic Design Danielle Ibrahim; Sound Design by Julian Crocamo; Lighting Design Elmera Martinez; Costume Design Marissa Wolf; Sound Design Mackenzie Adamick; Production Design Sue Rees; Audio Engineer Irene Wang; Fight Director Naomi Kim. Presented by Actors Shakespeare Project, Boston, MA, through October 26.
By C.J. Williams
Macbeth, as you know, is one of those plays that takes sanity and hope and puts them through a meat grinder. Once you’ve seen Macbeth, you’ve seen not only that blood will out, but that blood will douse, drench, and seep through skin into the deepest crevices of your heart, mind, and conscience. But what if you want to make it more disquieting? Perhaps this is what Director Christopher V. Edwards and the Actors’ Shakespeare Project team asked themselves as they planned this year’s production of the iconic play. How about staging the political and relational shenanigans during the Cold War?
With that answer, this production takes off. Familiar it is – is not. Using sound, light, and stage design to immersive effect, the creative team behind the stage instantly plunges the audience into the smoke-and-mirrors of the era. An interrogation chair. A brainwashing session? Throughout the production, screens scroll line after line of jumbled letters − code? − and geometric figures. The stage itself is split by sheer curtains, behind, around, and within which both the physical actors and their shadows interact, mirroring the more and more unstable states of their minds and hearts.
Yet despite fantastic lighting and sound design, and some heart-pumping performances, the staging lags slightly. The Witches, once wyrd and uncanny fate-like crones, are reframed as architects of “psychological manipulation.” When not speaking, outside the strict boundaries of Shakespeare’s text, this role is crystal and credible. Watching the women (Amanda Esmie Reynolds, Claire Mitchell, and Jade Guerra) silently reset a scene, observe an interrogation, and brainwash another actor is bone-chilling. But once they open their mouths to recite the Witches’ famous rhymes, the incongruity shatters the premise that we’re all watching a drama unfold in the 1960s Red Scare era. This language doesn’t fit. It’s all the more impressive then that each actor carries her role despite it and is clearly having a blast. If only they’d been reframed as conspiracy-theory-hippies on LSD trips.
It has to be said that the Macbeths, interpreted through the lens of brainwashing and state-sponsored psychological terror, could not be more believable. Every ounce of Cold War confusion adds to their descent into insanity, violence, and tragedy. Brooke Hardman, playing Lady Macbeth, has used every facet of the interpretation to add pathos to her character. No character in Shakespeare’s plays lacks humanity, but Lady Macbeth may be one most often played as single-noted, hard-as-flint: Not so here. Her interactions with Macbeth (played with passion by Omar Robinson), her interior arc so deftly echoed by the light and sound designers (Danielle Ibrahim and Elmer Martinez), is worth every minute of this production.
As the play winds down − or up, as may be the case in a story like this − another highlight is the clever staging of the banquet and Banquo’s ghost scene. Again, the blocking, scene and lighting design come into play, but with a subtlety that makes it easy to forget how key it is to the immersion. And the steady but persistent beat and buzz of the sound designers raise tension in a way that’s perfectly primal.
If you think you know the play, you may find yourself both following along and stopping dead. This Macbeth, despite a few missed shots (including an odd interlude of contemporary current events commentary midway through and the Witches’ diction), aims to unnerve. It’s perhaps a little unnerving that it feels so pertinent. But that’s story − and Shakespeare − in a nutshell: A good story and a well-crafted production are always pertinent. And a Shakespearean tragedy ought to leave you just a little disquieted.
For more information and tickets, go to: www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/plays-events/macbeth-2025/
