Something wicked this way comes to the Old Globe. Shakespeare’s classic tale of power and betrayal – “Macbeth” — comes to the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre during the 2016 Shakespeare Festival.
Brian Kulick’s production is visually stunning. The production is filled with arresting images so often found in film but which feel even grander in the scope of Kulick’s epic staging.
Kulick sets the Scottish tale in an uncanny asylum where three mental patients are the three witches who tell Macbeth of his future glory. Macbeth and his friend Banquo are soldiers clad in uniforms reminiscent of World War I and their presence in this mental institution feels strange and unresolved.
Why do the soldiers burst in on the asylum and why does the medical staff not question their domineering presence? Macbeth is set on the bed and given drugs and an infusion; he continues to wear his uniform while asylum patients dressed in white writhe beside him. This unsettling sense of a thing that is both familiar and newly strange imbues Kulick’s production.
In restaging a classic play, directors often try to find new elements of interesting contemporary connections. Kulick’s production makes brilliant use of a strong design team to emphasize his uncanny “Macbeth.”
Arnulfo Maldonado’s scenic design, Jason Lyons’ lighting design, Oana Botez’ costume design, and Sten Severson and David Thomas’s sound design each contribute to create a world that is like watching Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” on stage.
The set is a departure from the heavy use of wood or natural like materials often selected for the Festival Theatre.
Maldonado’s towering wall of white set before a simple circle is simple and stark, but perfectly suited to a mental institution. It becomes less readable as Macbeth’s castle but that serves to enforce the play’s sense of strangeness.
The transformation of the space after the murder of the king is stunning; a full wall of blood coats the stage.
Lyons’ lighting is dramatic and evocative, establishing the interior thoughts of Macbeth and revealing the deep extent that the play is told from within the mind of the characters. Botez’ costumes emphasize the schizophrenia through dueling time periods. The turn of the century uniforms so beautifully tailored and fitted are traded in the second act for highly contemporary formal wear.
Especially strong was Severson and Thomas’s sound design: The team created harsh music that could have come directly from a thrilling horror movie. Following the pattern established in Kubrick’s “The Shinning,” the team uses traditionally beautiful instruments in jarring disharmony to create another contradiction between familiar and strange.
“Macbeth” is now playing at the Old Globe Theatre through July 29 with performances Tuesday through Sunday.
Tickets are available at (619) 23-GLOBE, at www.TheOldGlobe.org or at the Globe box office. Ticket prices start at $36 with additional discounts for youths.
