The titular character in Shakespeare?s “Macbeth” sees in his mind?s eye a dagger.
Macbeth grasps the specter of the blade, and soon thereafter, a real dagger to murder his lord, King Duncan. But the “dagger of the mind,” as Shakespeare wrote, is also Macbeth?s conscience. And as the tragedy unfolds, it strikes at his sanity, as it strikes his queen, Lady Macbeth, his hand-washing-obsessed accomplice in regicide.
This duality of the daggers and the foul work they do, dispatching kings and kids alike, is at the heart of director Tony Tsendeas? “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”
“Blood will have blood,” says Macbeth (Conrad Feininger), and Tsendeas does not disappoint, as the gore literally flies across the stage as in the heinous slaughter of rival Macduff?s (Robb Hunter) family. The scene is particularly disturbing as Tsendeas brakes the action ? characters kill each other in “slow motion” under fierce red light and discordant music. A wounded mother (Molly Moores? Lady Macduff) crawls across the floor in screaming agony as a brigand stabs her baby to death, while another covers the scene with a hand-held video camera, a nod to modern times in more ways than one.
The scene shocked the audience into dead silence ? a vast improvement from the unintentional laughter produced by an earlier scene where Macbeth confronts a ghost summoned from his own tortured conscience, the throat-cut Banquo (Dana Whipkey). It?s a moment meant to evoke horror, but given today?s audience, hip to camp zombie movies like “Shaun of the Dead,” there weremore chuckles than gasps.
Kudos to Norah Worthington?s costume designs, which complement the techno-rock feel of the performance. Soldiers and noblemen wear a sort of combat chic, with kneepads, black boots and breastplates, like a SWAT team about to play paintball. While King Duncan (Chris Graybill) wears a straw-colored crown and raiment, like a benevolent “farmer king,” Macbeth?s steel-gray crown and black robes trimmed in red might have been borrowed from Sauron of “The Lord of the Rings.”
The witches (Rosemary Knower, Diana Cherkas, Christine Demuth) are uniform in their look and language (imagine if “The Addams Family?s” Morticia had been a punk rocker), and it is their words that bookend the play.
With Macbeth dead and the new king serenely picking bits of bloody hair from the mace his enemy once wielded, the witches muse on whom they shall greet next? “MACBETH!” they shout at the play?s beginning. As the curtain falls, they ask again, only this time, there is silence. The answer remains a mystery … but one can see the bloody cycle is set to run its brutal course again.
IF YOU GO
“The Tragedy of Macbeth”
» Venue: 4545 N. Charles St., Baltimore City. Outdoors in the Meadow at the Evergreen House.
» When: Through July 22. 7:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday; 5 p.m. Sundays
» Tickets: $25 regular; $15 on Thursday nights
» Information: 410-366-8596; www.baltimoreshakespeare.org
