Summary 
A big budget, an expansive thrust stage in a theatre of nearly two thousand seats, superbly talented stars in the lead roles, but a woeful lack of imagination. Many opportunities are lost in this less-than-by-the-book presentation of the Scottish tragedy that is a dull and lifeless disappointment.
Design
Directed by John Wood. Designed by John Ferguson. Lights by Gil Wechsler. Compositions by Alan Laing. Sound by Wade Staples.
Cast
Graham Abbey (Macbeth), Lucy Peacock (Lady Macbeth), Walter Borden (Duncan), Gareth Potter (Malcolm), Sean Arbuckle (Banquo), Michael McLachlan (MacDuff), Sarah McVie (Lady MacDuff).
Analysis
Director John Wood delivers a straightforward, well-performed Macbeth, tightly focused on the title character and his Lady. Wood elects to minimize the paranormal and instead concentrates on the human elements of the tragedy and the effects of hyper-ambition on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The choice, however, deprives the play of most of its inherently sinister mood and sense of supernatural seduction. In Wood's production, the witches are more wayward than weird - they seem simply to be elderly women dressed in rags spouting vague prophesies. They represent a natural part of the blasted heaths of Scotland, and there is little sense of sorcery or witchcraft in their appearance or actions. Lost is any feeling of entrapment by external forces; these witches only fortify ideas already within Macbeth's mind.
In 2.1, when Macbeth, in an open, billowy white shirt, ponders the dagger and the bloody regicide it offers, Graham Abbey's thane literally wields a dagger and speaks directly to it. The choice is clearly Macbeth's, his fate firmly within his own hands, and not a supernatural specter that might seduce and destroy both the King and him. The straightforward approach comes across as sluggish and unexciting.
When Macbeth comes to his 3.4 celebratory table after ordering the death of his friend Banquo and further ensnaring himself in a downward spiral, the audience does not gasp with horror (as does Macbeth) at the image of a bloodied ghost. Instead of from Macbeth's point of view, the audience only witnesses the scene from the perspective of the confused banquet guests as the King strangely shouts at an empty chair. Without the visceral image of a slain friend, the scene lacks power as well as tension, and is simply uncomfortable. The coming of Birnam Wood in 5.5 is also presented in a perfunctory manner, with only a brief glimpse of Malcolm's soldiers hiding behind branches.
Abbey presents well the personal consequences of Macbeth's actions, and Wood's conception works to a degree, but this is the Scottish play, fierce and terrifying in potential, and the audience is deprived of eerie spectacle and a chilling descent into hell. Wood and Abbey's end result is the portrayal of a sorrowful hero succumbing to ambition rather than a good soul's total corruption by evil. While the former provides interesting drama, the latter can be great theatre.
The setting is traditional eleventh-century Scotland, and Wood's stage is barren, with the longhaired Scots, dressed in the ragged layers of a warring tribe, the primary focus. Most supporting performances are subdued and conventional, heightening the focus on Macbeth and his Lady. Most notably, Macduff is played as a blustering man in a kilt and billowing white shirt, and Duncan, wearing a white wig with a bushy white goatee, is croaking and aged, far from strong or eloquent. In an interesting casting choice, Walter Borden portrays Duncan to Abbey's Macbeth, having also played Cardinal Wolsey to Abbey's Henry in the Festival's Henry VIII. In this production, Abbey's anti-hero Macbeth succumbs to ambition and slays Borden's virtuous King; in Henry VIII, Abbey's virtuous King survives the ambitious machinations of Borden's conniving Wolsey.
In contrast to Abbey's morose Macbeth, Lucy Peacock's Lady Macbeth is a ruthless hellion, simultaneously thrilled and appalled at the prospect of murdering Duncan and usurping his kingdom. Peacock's Lady, ghostly pale but raven-haired and dark-eyed, is the true witch of Wood's production, elegant and beautiful, strident and determined, but ultimately filled with violence and horror. Following Duncan's execution, she transforms from a fiery Queen imploring her husband to a woman so haunted by what she has done that she seems to be being torn apart from the inside out.
The sleepwalking scene represents the highlight of this production: Peacock's mad Lady, starkly spot-lit in blinding white light, crawls like a cat to the center of a white sheet that covers the entire stage. When she fails to wash the imagined blood from her hands, Peacock draws the white sheet around her like a drowning woman, and her words and actions together are intense, a profound example of how effective this tragedy can be. One wishes Wood, with Graham Abbey at his command as well as the mercurial Peacock, would have crafted more moments like this during the production and had far more dramatic success with this difficult play.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.23, No.1, Spring 2005.