Gold ends “Macbeth” with a sweet song (original music by Gaelynn Lea) sung by MacKenzie, previously seen as a witch and Macduff’s child. Michael Patrick Thornton adopts an overly familiar, smug tone to tell us about the year in which Shakespeare wrote “Macbeth.” Apparently, he was very prolific in 1606 because England was suffering through a pandemic and, not being able to act on stage, he could focus on his day job cranking out new material. Gold begins “Macbeth” with a prologue, delivered by the production’s Lennox. After the Malcolm/Macduff/Ross misfire, any kind of shock to the production is welcome. But just when you think you’re staring into an empty stage, Gold and his scenic designer Christine Jones surprise us. Gold creates most of his effects through fog machines, carried on stage by the actors, and flashlights, also carried on stage by the actors. An insert in the Playbill offers a note about this being a minimal production. The oppressive claustrophobia of the play’s first half dissipates, and so does the drama as the bodies pile up.
It’s not ideal, but it is often riveting nonetheless. Rather than being part of the action on Broadway, we’re peering across the proscenium stage at the action. The resulting claustrophobia becomes palatable, and it’s that decreasing sense of space that would work better on Gold’s home turf, Off Broadway. What’s a dish like this doing with a lump like Macbeth? We ask that question about a lot of married couples, and maybe because of that chronic mismatch (Larlarb’s costumes emphasize Negga’s exotic beauty), she and Craig are able to deliver a picture of marital bliss gone bad in scene after scene. Here in “Macbeth,” she resembles a gorgeous silent-movie vamp. She was a college student come home to a domestic mess, but as an actor, Negga possessed the technique to handle the Bard’s language in a way that no male teenage performer ever could. In 2020, she delivered an especially impetuous Hamlet at St. Negga, however, doesn’t have Craig’s common touch, and looks out of sync with Gold’s vision.
It’s fun watching actors as attractive as Craig and Negga engage in sex play for our entertainment. And in that portrait of white male vanity gone berserk, Larlarb’s costume shows off the actor’s sizable pecs in outfit after outfit. Late in the drama, pouting on his favorite living room couch, he delivers an uncanny portrait of what it’s like to be Vladimir Putin right now. Craig has the ability to spout poetry and still come off like a driven, single-minded dumbass. Really pissed off, his wife has to pick up the knives and put them back at the murder scene to see the plot through as she envisioned it.Ĭraig and Negga make it clear that once she has set the action in motion, he immediately turns into a big problem she can’t control. But after offing King Duncan (Paul Lazar, in his Broadway debut), Macbeth needs to unwind and that involves going to the fridge to get a beer. Unlike most married couples, they’re really sexy and make out a lot. Saturday Night’ Broadway Review: Billy Crystal Is Very Funny – Until He Starts to SingĮxcept for the outrageous things they say and do, this Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are just another married couple hanging out on their worn but comfortable living room couch.