Summary 
Modernized to 1960s Africa, a violent and bloody version of the Scottish tragedy that features shotguns, hand grenades, machine gun nests, a military jeep crashing onstage, and a vicious final duel with machetes and daggers. Uniformly strong acting but a loss of second-half momentum, then a confusingly racial conclusion, with the African characters displeased with the ascension of white-skinned Malcolm.
Design
Directed by Des McAnuff. Set by Robert Brill. Costumes by Paul Tazewell. Lights by Michael Walton. Music by Michael Roth. Sound by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Geraint Wyn Davies (Duncan), Gareth Potter (Malcolm), Colm Feore (Macbeth), Yanna McIntosh (Lady Macbeth), Tom Rooney (Porter), James Blendick (Doctor), Timothy D. Stickney (Banquo), Araya Mengesha (Fleance), Dion Johnstone (Macduff), Sophia Walker (Lady Macduff).
Analysis
Des McAnuff's modernized Macbeth at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival begins with a violent depiction of civil-war combat within an unnamed African nation. Flash pots explode to simulate hand grenades and soldiers with automatic rifles and shotguns wage an assault upon an upstage machine-gun nest. The wayward sisters then emerge from beneath a cluster of bodies, and they swarm over the battlefield dead, stealing weapons and shoes and rummaging through the pockets on the clothes of the bodies. The grisly scene, hauntingly powerful, continues as the witches, one of them blind and shambling with the aid of a walking stick, use flashlights to probe into the darkness onstage and into the audience, gathering over a lighted grate, their gruesome faces under-lit as Macbeth and Banquo approach. The soldiers carry shotguns, and Macbeth spins at the thought of being King, pursuing the fleeing witches - "stay!" - and nearly firing upon the approaching Ross.
McAnuff modernizes to a 1960s-era military era, although the location seems confused between textual Scotland and a war-torn African nation. Duncan, in beret and boots and military uniform, gathers his soldiers in 1.2 then his political allies in 1.4 attired in a three-piece business suit with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. Geraint Wyn Davies plays Duncan in the same suave and sophisticated style with which he renders a memorable Julius Caesar at the Festival's Avon Theatre, and his King consults with an array of advisors from military personnel, African counselors, and suited businessmen. An African political motif emerges - Lady Macbeth, the Macduffs, a prominent counselor, and Banquo and Fleance are all black - but is awkwardly developed and ultimately unconvincing. Malcolm and Donalbain, younger long-haired men - Donalbain with slicked back hair, a goatee, and sunglasses like a flashy public celebrity - join Duncan at a center stage press conference table equipped with four microphones. Colm Feore's tall, lean Macbeth is roundly applauded and photographed by four cameramen with big boxy flash cameras. At the announcement of a successor, all in attendance turn to Macbeth and appear surprised when Malcolm is named. Feore's Macbeth, nonplussed, stands to lead the applause for Malcolm, but lingers to brood alone afterward, although noticed by Banquo.
Yanna McIntosh as Lady Macbeth, resplendent in an African-style robe and dangling golden earrings, steps forward with her husband's letter into a pool of light for the unsettling "unsex me here" speech, and Feore's Macbeth approaches her from behind. He embraces her, lusty and purposeful, but appears appalled at the thought of regicide. The individual performances are strong - especially Feore's golden-voiced thane - but the two share little onstage chemistry in crucial early scenes. Lady Macbeth's successful "seduction" is achieved with just a baring of her shoulder as she leads him offstage. As Duncan toasts friends and allies upstage, Feore's Macbeth sits at an empty downstage table and deliberates, still torn between duty and ambition. He apparently sees a dagger before him and becomes resolved, leaping at the imaginary weapon, then pointedly drawing his own dagger to kill the King. His Lady, conversely, loses some of her grisly determination: attired in robe and slippers, she becomes frightened and is startled by the nighttime sounds within the darkened castle. When Feore's Macbeth returns with bloody hands, she checks upstage but then must pull him upstage to make him move. The Porter scene is effective, with Tom Rooney's hung over Porter staggering downstage with a clip-on tie on his T-shirt, probing the audience with his flashlight for legislators and priests. When the murdered King is discovered, his bloody corpse is carried center stage, and Donalbain overturns a chair in shock then must fight back vomit.
The Macbeth marital relationship of course becomes strained as she becomes more guilt-ridden and he becomes more steeped in blood, and during the coronation press conference, Feore's Macbeth - already becoming desperately dissatisfied - seems as though he can barely stand to look at his wife, much less be near her. They greet an array of supporters and cameramen, including an apparently newly arrived Macduff carrying a duffel bag. Later, in her bedchamber by a large canopied bed, she attempts to seduce him in her 1960s-style gown and shoes, but Feore's Macbeth moves away from her embrace, and when she reaches out, he moves even farther off. Macbeth dispatches the murderers after Banquo and Fleance - the assassins arrive on bicycles and execute Banquo with a cold-blooded double-tap of pistol shots - then MacAnuff raises the lights on an upstage banquet. Feore's Macbeth, wearing a tuxedo adorned with military medals, greets a blood-spattered messenger then turns back to his guests and Lady Macbeth, who wears formal white gloves with her gown. Banquo, bloody-faced with one eye bruised and closed shut, rises in a trap to take Macbeth's position at the table. Feore's Macbeth, first startled then horrified, draws a military guard's sidearm and fires it in the air to scatter the guests, and Lady Macbeth reaches a calming hand toward him that he of course evades as the production dramatically reaches interval.
The second act descent into madness and violence, while dramatically stage, lacks the emotional power of the first half. Feore's Macbeth, already hunkering within a military bunker, oversees elevated machine gun posts at either side of the stage occupied by masked soldiers with searchlight. Four video surveillance monitors are visible, two attached to each metal frame below the sentry post, and the image of the Dunsinane exterior sometimes flickers for a brief flash of a witch's malevolent and staring face. The witches return 4.1 and encircle a trap at center stage, the pit glowing blue like the contents of a cauldron, then yellow and orange as vile ingredients are added. Macbeth sits upstage at a desk, facing away from the cauldron and the audience, then suddenly spins in the desk chair to confront the witches. Faces appear on video screens - first Macduff, then a child, then future kings - revealing prophesies as fog roils from a vent high upstage.
McAnuff intercuts the brutal murder of the Macduff family with the confrontation in England between Malcolm and Macduff. Lady Macduff emerges from a trap, loading boxes marked "canned rations" into a hidden homemade bomb shelter or panic room. Wearing an African robe and headdress, she stores a rifle in the hidden room while her son draws pictures at a table and the sound of a nearby crying infant is heard. MacAnuff then shifts to Malcolm's discourse with Macduff, riling the thane to the point that he grabs Malcolm by the face and nearby guards raise their rifles. The scene then cuts back to Lady Macduff with the abrupt sound of a burst of machine gun fire, and the young son has his throat slit to a graphic spurt of stage blood. The murderers, upon hearing the wails of the infant, rush offstage and a sudden silence is bone chilling.
McAnuff drives toward the conclusion, with McIntosh's murmuring Lady walking rapidly about the stage, putting down her lamp to mime washing her hands, as the televisions flicker around her to show the eyes of the witches watching her madness.
The production's violent conclusion prompted some Canadian press to criticize the show as "MacRambo," but the depictions are brutal and efficiently staged. Macbeth's armor, a bullet-proof flak vest, is donned as he is told about the passing of his estranged wife. Feore's Macbeth, in his finest moment, stands alone downstage as he seems to recall a far more innocent time: tears appear in his eyes and his voice chokes as he speaks about the horrors of "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." The lights drop, and to the roar of fighter jets and attack helicopters overhead, soldiers suddenly rappel to the stage from the fly in a thrilling depiction of surprise invasion. A camouflage-colored jeep crashes onstage through an upstage wall and Macduff as assassin approaches wielding a hatchet. Feore's Macbeth steels his wool yet again, flipping the table in a fury and sending his wheeled desk chair spinning across the stage. The single combat between the two men is graphic and quick as well as hauntingly unique: Macduff, wielding dagger and machete, yanks Macbeth backward onto the hood of the vehicle then strikes again and again as if severing the tyrant's head.
McAnuff's Macbeth would have concluded dramatically and satisfactorily on the powerfully wrought and compelling warfare imagery, but a head-scratching political aspect is tacked on that confuses the audience. The video screens show Malcolm at a podium addressing the press, a Union Jack behind him - further confusing the Scotland or Africa question with English political influence - and as the cameramen snap more photographs, Malcolm proclaims kingship to the obvious disapproval and shock of all the African characters onstage. The suddenly renewed theme - with its underlying hints at racism and oppression - comes from nowhere and while certainly a valid concept, is underdeveloped and far from satisfying, significantly marring the conclusion of an otherwise powerful drama.