Macbeth at Flat Rock Playhouse
Make haste to Flat Rock Playhouse, because with its Black Box Series production of Macbeth, the theater has pulled off an absolute coup. That may sound melodramatic, but it’s certainly thematically appropriate given the nature of William Shakespeare’s tale of power, treachery, and treason.
In its first swing at Shakespeare, FRP has swung big, and in moving Macbeth from its Scottish noble origins to an isolated Appalachian encampment in the throes of a modern civil war, there are many places where such an undertaking could have gone wrong. Instead, the production, directed by Lisa K. Bryant, is engrossing, gripping, and stunning — and, frankly, I have nothing but high praise.
In the theater’s new Black Box Series, the audience is seated on stage and in the round, surrounding the players and in constant close quarters with the action. From the first steps up to the stage, the audience is enveloped in the hardscrabble, hand-to-mouth world this play conjures, and set dressing courtesy of scenic designer Dennis C. Maudlin of scavenged corrugated tin and chain link, missing person posters, religious iconography and mementos, bleeds even into the first few rows of the empty floor seats.
Piped in Appalachian music greets the audience, as does a warning broadcast over a tinny loudspeaker that cell phone use during the performance will result in the loss of “two days’ rations.” An additional news bite refers to political transitions in Raleigh, setting the location firmly in North Carolina, as do flag patches worn by a few characters on their jacket sleeves as they emerge to greet one another and stand at attention atop a cracked concrete pad at center stage amid wooden ammunition crates and meager furnishings. The players are dressed in improvised battle wear, flannel shirts, civilian tactical gear, camo kilts, and cobbled thrift store ensembles — a believable treatment from costume designer Ashli Crump. As the group gathers to offer one another warm greetings, their smiles and palaver are betrayed by the AR-15s and hunting knives they carry.
Apart from this setup, we know next to nothing about what is happening outside this backwoods enclave. There’s no indication of whose side or which political ideals this particular band adheres to. And it honestly doesn’t matter much, because the fatal thrust of Macbeth’s dagger comes famously from within in a bloody struggle for power.
Feuds and bloodshed are not alien to Appalachia, but how do the words of The Bard land when set in the mountain region? I’m happy to report that fears of caricature or overwrought country twangs are misplaced. The ensemble speaks in natural tones — some, but not all, with a touch of Southern dialect. And even then, the accents slide comfortably and naturally into the rhythm of Shakespeare’s lines.
If you’ve ever been to a craft brewery, you’ve heard these voices. And with the skill with which this script has been digested by the actors, it’s even more effective and accessible than the lofty faux-British accent we’ve come to associate with Bill’s works. So much in fact that it’s easy to forget that these words were written more than 300 years ago and just sink into the story itself. Yes, there are a few minuscule winks and nods to modernity slid in — mentions of Duke Mayonnaise and Wal-Mart come to mind — but they’re fleeting and not distracting.
From the start of the action, when the sound of a bomb blast disrupts the fellowship of our characters and sends them scurrying in all directions, the play holds over us a sense of impending doom and urgency, enhanced by occasional low and ominous droning sounds from sound designer Kurt Davis.
Then, when a man clad in animal pelts, antlers, and plastic shopping bags ambles and twirls onto the stage and begins the narration historically performed by the play’s famous three witches, it becomes apparent that this is not the Shakespeare we have known these many years. Paul Vonasek, credited only as “The Witches,” rambles and blurts the words of all three soothsayers, filling in the dialogue by conversing with collected figurines or switching voices and talking to himself. It is an aggregate also used to great effect in a comparably manner by Joel Coen in The Tragedy of Macbeth, and the interpretation is both awesome and unsettling, quickly demonstrating that not much is out of bounds in this performance. Later, when he reaches the iconic lines of “toil and trouble,” belting them out in a warped ballad verse while pounding on a table top (before descending into a twisted paranoid episode as fog and low mystical tones hang in the air), the impact is so stout you won’t even miss the cauldron.
Indeed, each of the play’s characters feel fully developed, even beyond the lines handed down by literary history. Macbeth (David Lind) visibly carries the weight of concern for his brothers and sisters in arms; Macduff (Eddie Maldonado) is a warrior badass fueled by urgency instead of vainglory; and Malcolm (Nat Zegree) persists despite the grief and exhaustion at the circumstances. In each character, the responses to survival and desperation are distinct and palpable.
That desperation also makes for an interesting read on the historically maligned Lady Macbeth (Jillian Guerts, donning black denim, sleeveless black T-shirt, tattoos, and viking braids courtesy of hair and makeup designer Ansley Juan). Lady M the noble woman has gone down in the literary books as a power-hungry puppetmaster who, already rich and powerful, lusts only for more. But here, in this threadbare community where resources are slim and the consequences of defeat dire, it’s easy to imagine her actions driven by anxiety instead of an outright power grab. Not that her actions, or those of Macbeth himself, are so easily forgiven, and Lady Macduff (Chloe Fox) shoots daggers from her eyes as she explains to her child what happens to traitors.
There have certainly been numerous other attempts at resetting Shakespeare, to varying degrees of success. One of this Macbeth’s biggest achievements, and a credit to the entire cast and crew, is that it doesn’t feel like watching Shakespeare through a filter. It feels like the story that exists beneath the words, freestanding and engrossing and sometimes genuinely frightening. The theater-in-the-round format makes each action more personal, be it Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness or the murder of Banquo, which are both terrible and shocking even with the knowledge it was coming.
The unraveling of events feels unstoppable and even unpredictable, which is a weird thing to say about a centuries-old play. But the Flat Rock Playhouse’s Macbeth delivers. By the time the party learns the army is descending on them, the violent internal fractures have rendered the camp undefendable. It feels that all is lost.
It’s a tried-and-true scenario in modern apocalyptic tales — no matter the outside danger, be it war, pandemics, or even zombies — when autonomy is diminished and resources are scarce, the real threat almost always comes from the other survivors. Shakespeare had it right: we just needed to bring Macbeth down from the castle and into the dirt with the rest of us to see clearly that the danger comes from within.
As the old man whispers early in the play: “Tis said they eat each other.”
Macbeth runs through Sunday, Oct. 22, at Flat Rock Playhouse. For details and tickets, visit flatrockplayhouse.org
(Photo: Treadshots)
