macbeth
by William Shakespeare
directed by William Addis
featuring Eric Chase as Macbeth
performances: July 13-14-15-19-&-27-2007 at 8pm, with a matinee July 2-at-2PM
tickets: $15, or $25 for a season pass
Witches, ghosts and murderers populate this stormy landscape. “The Scottish Play” examines the rise and fall of the once-noble Macbeth. This is Shakespeare’s greatest study in evil; a tale of sound and fury that continues to chill and disturb audiences 400 years after its debut.
Want to learn more about the infamous Macbeth "curse"?
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press highlights:
"...This Macbeth is fresh, brisk and infused with surprising energy... Just 12 actors fill the teeming hordes of roles Shakespeare wrought, and the company makes no bones about its traditional disregard of gender... It all works, and vanishes as a distraction, because the Bakerloo ensemble is so good- particularly on the distaff side. The Weird- Lady Macbeth threesome are all intense and mysterious and (Marsha ) Harman gives the 'meek' doomed Duncan a heartfelt, emotional take. (Eric) Chase is vigorous, dark and full-blooded as Macbeth and Joseph McGranaghan infuses the usually saintly Banquo with a hint of his own avariciousness. Bit players such as Kate Hess, Melanie O'Malley and Danielle Grabianowksi make finely drawn character contributions. The bare-bones unfussy setting encourages some novel use of fabrics to create interesting visual images, notably in creating the faceless ghosts that offer Macbeth fatally cryptic advice....Addis keeps it moving in both space and tempo...
You'll curse yourself if you don't give this bold Macbeth a try."
-Phil Drew, The Record
July 19, 2007
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"As we left Academy Hall after seeing the Bakerloo Theatre Project's current production of Macbeth, my companion said to me: "I was amazed by how much I didn't miss what wasn't there!"
What she was referring to was the genius director William Addis, his cast and his creative team have employed to turn Peter Brook's proverbial Empty Space into a place alive with people, places, sights, and sounds. On the bare floor of RPI's Academy Hall auditorium Bakerloo has created a world of sound and fury signifying a great many things, most of them as barbarous and raw as those first millennium days in Scotland undoubtedly were.
...Bakerloo is a company of young theatre professionals, and there is no doubt in my minf that Macbeth is a story of youth and passion – were Macbeth and Lady Macbeth much more than 30 they would have steadier hands and minds and this tale of uncontrolled mayhem would not work. This is a very young couple, passionately but barrenly in love and wild to create. When they can't create they destroy everyone and everything around them, and ultimately themselves.
Here the title role is assayed with youth and intensity by Eric Chase. The pivotal role of Lady Macbeth is split between Bakerloo's three talented leading ladies – Sarah Murphy, Gwyn Hervochon, and Marsha Harman, in order of appearance – who also play the three Weird Sisters throughout...
Addis presented many truly spectacular visuals during the Witches' scenes. The bubbling cauldron creating by a writhing body encased in stretchy white fabric, the ghostly faces and hands appearing through the white flats, the relentless clomp of boots as Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, each image was created simply, flawlessly, and to chilling effect.
A vital component to the power of this production is the lighting design by Tony Tambasco. While not every cue was perfect at the opening night performance (National Grid helpfully shut down the power to Troy during the company's scheduled tech rehearsal), the overall effect was stunning. The play is performed largely in a gloomy twilight, a nightmare landscape, the Dark Ages indeed!
...watching this production I came as close as I ever will to understanding the enjoyment so many people get from horror stories. There is something cathartic about them, something satisfying in watching safely fictional characters act out all the nasty rotten things that secretly lurk in all of our hearts."
-Gail Burns, gailsez.org
July 13, 2007