Witches fuel the aesthetic at Invictus Theatre’s “Macbeth.” They’re on the stage at Albany Park’s Windy City Playhouse as the audience is milling about and getting seated, a trio of “secret and black midnight hags” writhing like a three-headed amoeba, hissing and shrieking like feral cats.
In director Sarafina Vecchio’s eerie, mostly effective production of Shakespeare’s gruesome tragedy, the forces of the supernatural aren’t relegated to the wilds of 10th century Scotland: They’ve breached the castle walls, donning servant caps as they silently carry candles, refill wine goblets and watch all through downcast eyes. They lurk in the vapors, everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Macbeth” has always been steeped six-feet deep in the occult. Vecchio highlights the dark mysteries of the play with violent panache. Running through Dec. 15, “Macbeth” is a solid, sometimes exceptional, production of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
The story follows the titular Scottish general (Mikha’el Amin) as he tromps wearily home from war, only to be stopped short by the three cloak-clad soothsayers who foretell he will become Thane of Cawdor and then, King of Scotland. His compatriot/best friend Banquo (Charlie Diaz), the witches continue, will bear kings. The men are dumbstruck, but Macbeth’s wonderment quickly curdles into craven ambition.
Lady Macbeth (Carolyn Kruse) is the spark to the incendiary kindling the witches light under Macbeth. Having survived the death of her only child, she’s channeled her fury and unbearable sorrow into an unslakable thirst for power. Together, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth drive each other to violent success while spiraling into psychosis, bodies piling up like cordwood in their wake, wrathful ghosts following.
Amin’s metamorphosis from loyal subject to regicidal maniac is abrupt and effective. Initially, he scoffs at the witches (Christy Arington, Tessa Dougherty and Julia Rowley). You can see the shift in Amin’s posture, expression and voice as he changes, morphing into the human embodiment of the truism that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s a raw, electrifying performance, never more so than when Amin delivers Macbeth’s bitter, bleak summation of human life: “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.”
You’ve got no “Macbeth” without Lady MacBeth, and Kruse shows a deep understanding of both the woman and the text. Her mad scene is chilling, a kinetic portrait of the depths of mental illness combined with anguished regret over things that once done, cannot be undone.
Also outstanding: Michael B. Woods as Macduff, a Scottish noble whose wife and very young children are murdered in one of Vecchio’s most merciless scenes. The shock and utter disbelief Woods emanates when Macduff learns of the killings (“Did heaven look on and not take their part?”) is a tear-jerker moment. It’s also a moment that quickly mutates into a rage for vengeance.
Fight/intimacy coordinators Amber Wuttke and Jay Donley (of Violent Delights) stumble in the slo-mo warfare of the play’s opening scene (the intimate space makes slow-motion anything look like mediocre miming), but the climactic face-off between Macbeth and MacDuff is an anxiety-provoking nail-biter of clanging swords and ever-present danger.
The scenes involving the lesser Thanes also need tweaking. Acting is also reacting, but when characters without lines are constantly mugging and pretending to chit chat while lined up in the background, it pulls focus.
And although the tattered, earth-and-iron palette costumes (by Cindy Moon) are effective, some of the royal insignias — borne on flags and sashes — are not. The Thane of Cawdor’s standard, for example, looks like a flapping chicken or a bowling ball with wings, depending on your POV. The Norwegian flag is basically an oversized dish towel.
Another small matter: A climactic severed head aside, the blood in this bloody tale isn't terribly visible beyond a faint glisten in key scenes, including Lady Macbeth’s iconic “out damned spot” monologue.
Manual Ortiz’ set design is a dreamy nightmare. A massive door stands upstage, the liminal murk behind it like a gaping jaw waiting to swallow all in darkness. Animal skulls hang from the branches of the trees that surround the stage, moss creeps off the stage up the steps to the seating, giving the whole place a vibe of ancient decay.
Petter Wahlback’s sound design knits everything together with ominous beauty, his heavy use of percussion sometimes mimicking the heartbeat meter (one soft beat, one strong beat, repeated) that governs so much of Shakespeare’s gloriously ghostly text.
