Macbeth at the HFAC

So, I attended Macbeth at the Harris Fine Art Center’s Pardoe Theatre for the Saturday afternoon matinee. Barta Lee Heiner’s adaptation benefits from generally good acting and very good lighting and sound. While I feel that some of the conceptual considerations are perhaps ill-considered, and the sword choreography a little too careful, I hereby recommend the overall experience.

The actor Hank Florence is especially good in his role as the towering, mad-eyed Macbeth character (named in the production Mabett’). At times his ferocity dominates the stage, and it is easy to sense that the fear of the other characters is not altogether artificial. And if not, who could blame them? From my third-row seat, I could see that the blows and spittle he doled out upon his pitiable comrades (including a totally snot-endowed logy on a guy right after he murders him) were real enough! Brighton Hertford’s Lady Mabett’ is good because she's intense, and good-looking. I found myself rubbing my own hands on my trousers, trying to rid myself of a stain no one else could see…

Not really.

The approaches towards depicting a ghost (bleached out spotlighting, broken up) and the witches’ séance-like relay of prophetic information (a lower-octave echo of the dialogue) were really pretty reminiscent of other productions on stage and film. Think Lady Galadriel in her possessed state pursuant to Frodo’s offer of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings, and you're pretty much right on the money for both effects. However, the execution was such that this lack of innovation was immediately forgivable.

All right, now to account for the snickers you all snickered upon seeing the picture. Yes, Heiner has chosen to set her Macbeth in Mesoamerica. Like many theatre-goers, I am one who generally prefers to take his Shakespeare black, and this really seemed like a disaster waiting to happen (am I right?) but I went with an open mind. Surpringly, the concept actually worked for me in a few ways; for instance, the costuming of the assassins and other evildoers – faces and bodies etched with tattoos, hair long and unruly, scant clothing revealing skin usually glistening with the fresh blood of victims – gives them an aura of barbarism that worked well with their characters. The costume designers borrowed liberally from Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, and so the characters seemed to share that same bone-cracklin' blood spurtin' heritage. Is that how Indians really are, btw? I'm glad so we have artists to keep us culturally up-to-speed, you know?

However, in other ways, the Mesoamerican setting came off gimmicky. This was especially true with changes to titles (king becomes “chief judge”) and, of course, the pseudo-Mesoamericanization of character and place names. The best-laid plans of the director notwithstanding, these obvious detours from the poetic Shakespearean dialogue are distracting. Furthermore, the costuming of the Macduff (Madach’) and other “good” characters was a little too reliant on the fur-laden, Arnold Friberg-inspired Nephi archetype to evince much depth.

It's pretty clear that if all these people are living in the same environment, somebody is really inappropriately dressed.

Things you'll notice: There are buckets upon buckets of blood in this play, and there is even a really excellent severed head at the end, which characters talk about as if he's a regular person and which was groty enough to inspire a collective gasp from the audience. Also, Macbeth gives one of the best speeches of all time, from which the title for William Faulker's Sound and the Fury comes.

The matinee is just $8.00 for all comers (even non-students/faculty); the night show is $11.00 for BYU students, $15.00 for everyone else. The production will continue at the Pardoe Theatre until April 3, 2009.