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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0725  Tuesday, 30 October 2007

From:		David Evett <d.evett@csuohio.edu>
Date:		Monday, 22 Oct 2007 23:10:55 -0400
Subject:	Macbeth in Boston

With my usual disclaimer of rigorous objectivity, I recommend the 
Actors' Shakespeare Project's all-women *Macbeth*, which runs in Studio 
102 of the Boston University Fine Arts Building through Nov. 11.

Adrianne Krystansky has chosen to embrace, not evade the gender issues 
presented by what at first approach may seem an intensely masculine 
play; the actors playing male roles wear their hair long and dress in 
snug-fitting clothes that show off breasts and hips, while the female 
characters have head-coverings and form-concealing outfits. Marya Lowry 
as Macbeth, Jacqui Parker as Banquo, and Bobbie Steinbach as Duncan and 
the Porter wear their military, political, and domestic authority with 
practiced ease; one result is to push Paula Plum toward a markedly 
feminine reading of Lady M as middle-aged adolescent, still living in a 
world of romantic dreams whose modulation into nightmares is 
harrowing--it is a remarkable performance and perhaps worth seeing on 
its own.

The Weird Sisters occupy an equally female but far more various and 
vigorous realm; Macbeth's attempts to enter and master it contribute 
powerfully to his own transit into self-destructive violence.

The production does pay particular attention to the play's emphasis on 
the destruction of families, most sharply marked in the double-casting 
of Sarah Newhouse as a Lady Macduff who could be as tough as her husband 
if she had the chance, and a Macduff whose grief at the slaughter of his 
family has nothing at all of the stoic in it.

The company plays with its customary clarity and elan, and the 
production makes excellent use of the medieval oddities of the space.

For tickets and additional information, go to the company website, 
http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/.

David Evett

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