Macbeth by William Shakespeare |3 out of 4 Stars|Folger Theatre
By Kyle Osborne
This article isn’t for people who know their Shakespeare cold. For knowledgeable theatre goers, read this take on the play and music. No, this is for those who only kinda recognize the quotes below, and will be surprised to learn the well-known lines are, indeed, from Macbeth.
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” Macbeth Quote (Act IV, Scene I).
“…it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Macbeth Quote (Act V, Scene V).
“what ‘s done is done”. Macbeth ( Quote Act III, Scene II).
Yeah, see, these lines that hillbillies like me have heard forever are wondrously put into context!
Photo by Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet.
Folger Theatre is presenting a restoration-era adaptation by William Davenant that was wildly popular from the 1660’s (in London’s re-opened theatres, which had been closed since 1642) until well into the 18th Century. Music was added at that time, and the Folger Consort also incorporates additional 17th century English and Scottish music throughout. Imagine a new take that is still centuries old.
The Bard’s fictionalized story of the real Scottish King Macbeth brings in a delicious mix of murder, backstabbing, (um, and front stabbing). Operatic singing from witches, prophecies and other shenanigans that caused the diarist Samuel Pepys to declare in 1667 that this version was “a most excellent play in all respects” and a “strange perfection.”
Director Robert Richmond places the story as a play within a play- set in the grimy Bedlam mental asylum in London, two weeks after the Great Fire of 1666. Our actors are ‘mental patients’ who bring their characters to life, even as they walk the stone floors in tattered clothes.
This is a very limited run, part of an event that brought scholars and performing artists together from several institutions called Performing Restoration Shakespeare.
The cast includes the brilliant Ian Merril Peakes (so great in Timon of Athens at Folger) in the title role, and Kate Eastwood Norris as Lady Mcbeth. The sights and sounds and even the smell of candles (or possibly just the heated metal of new light fixtures, but the effect is similar) transport you to a specific time and place that you won’t want to leave in a hurry.
You can read side-by-side comparisons between Shakespeare and Davenant’s adaptation, watch a great video, and get more detail and tickets (going very fast) at: https://www.folger.edu/events/shakespeares-macbeth