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Kabuki Lady Macbeth
At
Chicago Shakespeare’s Courtyard Theater
On Navy Pier
Chicago Shakespeare Theater Website
800 East Grand Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60611
312-595-5633
Barbara Gaines: Artistic Director
Criss Henderson: Executive Director
Conceived and Directed: Shozo Sato
Written: Karen Sunde
Starring:
Barbara Robertson, Michael F. Goldberg, Laura T. Fisher,
George Keating, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Anthony Starke,
Peggy Roeder, Gregor Mortis, Ben Dickie,
Jesse GrothOlson, Elizabeth Tanner
Production Design: Shozo Sato
Scenic Design: Katherine Ross
Lighting Design: Michael Rourke
Sound Design: Lindsay Jones
Assistant Director: Michael F. Goldberg
Casting: Bob Mason
Production Stage Manager: Jennifer Matheson Collins
Public Relations: Jasen Woehrle
Support: Joyce Chelberg and Lou and Dick Hurckes
Additional Underwriting for Shozo Sato: Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation
and the Julius Frankel Foundation
Programming Support: Hyatt Hotels Corporation
Lighting Design Sponsorship: ComEd
Official Airline: American Airlines
Through May 1, 2005
Susan Weinrebe
March 29, 2005 (See Interview with Michael Goldberg, Kabuki Macbeth). Just about everyone knows what happens when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, nearly half a millennium after Shakespeare wrote his “Scottish play.” So what is left to do with this tale of intrigue, murder, and hubris? Why, make it Kabuki Lady Macbeth, of course!
Transcending time and space in Zen Master and Living Treasure Shozo Sato’s interpretation of Macbeth, the Chicago audience is transported to a Japanese theater with all its attendant sensory trimmings.
Like a golden beacon, an exquisitely embroidered antique wedding kimono, a gift from Master Sato’s teacher, and displayed here for the first time, beckons us into our kabuki experience. The passage and theater are black, as is the stage. Red and white paper globes light the way and flute music wafts around us. A ki player settles himself unobtrusively to the side of the set and as he strikes wood upon wood, the play begins.
In this reinterpretation of Macbeth, his lady becomes our central focus. She is the femme behind the fatale. She even embodies the power of the original seductive partnership: Eve and serpent when, in a dream-like sequence, Lady Macbeth completes an onstage costume change from her kimono into a snake-printed body suit. Or, perhaps, this is a suggestion of the erotic power of a Japanese full-body tattoo. Either way, there is no doubt of this woman’s sexuality or her craft in using any of her wiles to achieve her dark purpose and ultimately her destruction.
Kabuki actors erase their faces with white paint as they assume the persona of the characters they take on. The audience knows that cues in the makeup, such as eyebrow shape, identify the role being played. Also, vocalizations, at first completely foreign to a Western ear, identify moments at the end of a speech (as do Shakespeare’s rhyming couplets), or points of emphasis. The ki player, likewise uses percussive punctuation to mark notable points in a speech just as the actors use audible breathing techniques to emphasize a passage.
The witches, self-proclaimed, “…light, shadow, destiny…” were omnipresent throughout this version of the play, serving as choral guides to the drama as it unfolded. Early in their first appearance, they informed us that without a balance of elements there would be chaos. Thus, if one element becomes too strong or one too weak, as the pairing of yin and yang, catastrophe!
From the moment the witches entered until the curtain calls, I was inundated by a visual richness I would be hard-tested to match in other theater experiences. Koken (prop hands) rendered “invisible” by their brown, all-covering garments, moved gorgeous screens about to delineate rooms. Along with the leafy scrim, these provided elegantly minimal suggestion of place.
Nothing, however, was omitted from the principal actors’ costumes in the way of embellishment. So lavish and symbolically expressive were Lady Macbeth’s kimonos, they should have been given a cast credit of their own! Beneath a cascade of hair, glossy as a raven’s wing, Lady Macbeth wore clothing that abetted her in conveying a range of emotions and motives. Lord Macbeth was resplendent in golden helmet and armor that was a useless carapace, segments clicking with his movements.
Two particularly visual moments gave me goose bumps. When Duncan had been murdered and the Macbeths’ world was awash in blood, a myriad of red ribbons suspended from the rafters, hung over the actors for a moment before they were released to spill over them and onto the stage. Later, glimmering white strands of mixed fibers represented the woods. These hung thickly about the actors, nearly entangling them in web-like material and creating a visual iciness as cold as their hearts – or regrets.
After the performance, I chatted with several young girls aged 11 to 15 about the play. Though they’d never seen it before, they said they understood and loved it. That was one of the many wonderful aspects about this version of an old story. Instead of being unapproachable, the kabuki concept and reinterpretation that focused on the female behind the fall, made Kabuki Lady Macbeth accessible to even very young theater goers.
The Witches (l to r back row: Laura Fisher, George Keating, and Elizabeth Laidlaw) reflect the internal struggle and dark ambitions of Lady Macbeth (Barbara Robertson-front center).
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
Lady Macbeth (Barbara Robertson) is empowered as "the highest lady in the land."
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
Michael F. Goldberg as Macbeth
Photo courtesy of Peter Bosy
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