Macbeth
Coronation Park
The National Post

The theatre by the lake, about whose natural charms I rhapsodize every summer, is mounting its first tragedy. The fall of night in an open-air theatre can always be counted on to supply second-act magic: a huge bonus when the play is a comedy. In Macbeth, of course the magic is required to be black, and nightfall proves up to the job. The background plashing of Lake Ontario, generally soothing, now sounds disturbing: the elements going unshakably about their business while humanity implodes. Meanwhile, the production's own thunder effects come on very strong.

Nature doesn't help the play much in other respects. Michael Shamata has more experience of this space than any other director, but he hasn't found much use for it this time. The green expanses between water and stage remain untravelled. Hopes that the invading English army might arrive by boat and then march down through the trees, merging with them to suggest that Birnam Wood could indeed be coming to Dunsinane, are not realized. Even the one tree at the centre of the acting area finds only a couple of roles for itself. Banquo's murderers lurk round it. Lady Macbeth poses against it while beseeching the spirits, with a graphic gesture, to unsex her here and fill her up with cruelty. The spirits, incidentally, fall down on the unsexing part. Colombe Demers, both in her own right and in her relation to David Jansen's Macbeth, is one of the most sensuously compelling Lady M's I have seen.

The central couple, at least as seen here, are death ships that pass in the night. He starts as a professional soldier, never more at ease that when caked in blood but with certain scruples about shedding it off-duty. When kingship is the prize, she is the practical agent who shows him the way to get it and makes sure he comes through. She would like, once the family firm has achieved its objective, to get out of the killing business; and she is mystified, even horrified, by his persistence in it. He is now the slave, not just of his own bloodlust, but of his own imagination, which keeps summoning new threats and new victims. (So she, when guilt takes hold, walks in her sleep and talks prose. He stays awake, and is a poet.)

The scene after Duncan's murder is the production's first turning point. He is appalled by his deed, but has already surrendered to it: high on blood. She, as she admits, has to get drunk to get through it; her reserves of determination are already beginning to be depleted. What keeps her going is her habit (marriage-long, presumably) of standing by her man. When he goes beyond her -- when he ostentatiously plans the death of Banquo without involving her -- she is devastated. With this groundwork laid, her remaining scenes of banquet and breakdown practically play themselves.

I wouldn't call Demers the most underrated actress in this part of Canada -- she gets good reviews and even award nominations --but she may, in proportion to her talent and versatility, be the most underused. Her high- comic work in A Flea in Her Ear and The Game of Love and Chance was exceptional, and here -- with a sulphurous voice, and wearing a stunning succession of gowns, formal and otherwise (she goes from beige to red to black to white -- far more variety of apparel than anyone else is permitted) she has every moment of her character's progress nailed down.

Jansen, in a far more alarming role, is less consistent. His baby- faced tyrant is best at suggesting a spiritual solitude. Remote at the start, even when receiving congratulations from his fellow thanes, he is untouchable at the end, in a different world from everyone around him. He is less good at communicating what he sees there. He is at excellent at briefing Banquo's murderers, from whom he keeps a controlling distance; he is not the man to convince us that he actually sees Banquo's ghost -- whom the production, prosaically and unwisely, refuses to produce.

This Macbeth ends up as a study in the banality of evil, ordering the slaughter of Macduff's family without a flicker of emotion; I suspect Shakespeare had something more excitingly demonic in mind. (He isn't helped by the fact that the real demon seems to be his servant Seyton, who doubles, among other things, as the Third Murderer who lets Banquo's son get away. You begin to wonder if he's doing this on purpose, playing a double game with the future royal family. Macbeth already gets double-crossed by the witches; he really doesn't need further competition in evil from his own entourage.)

The cauldron scene is effectively smoky, with one of the Three Weirds acting as medium for the prophetic apparitions; she is also apparently pregnant, the devil knows with what. (It is the character, not the actress, who subsequently appears as Lady Macbeth's gentlewoman, devoid of bulge.)

There is a good drunken Porter (Paul Fauteux) who briefly steals the show without stopping it, as is proper. Glyn Thomas does well by Banquo's lurking suspicions, as does Allan Hawco by Macduff's reeling bereavement. Malcolm (Philip Riccio) suggests a promising actor in need of basic Shakespearean training. He is involved, though, in the production's most rewardingly original moment: Duncan (Peter Elliott, who returns after death to do all the other old men) names Malcolm as his heir and teases out the announcement, just long enough to keep Macbeth in suspense and then tip him further over the regicidal edge.

The male characters wear shirtsleeves and leather jackets. This gives an unassuming air of modern-dress-by- default that is perfectly acceptable until you notice that the soldiers among them have guns in their holsters.

This hardly fits the play's imagery, so famously preoccupied with daggers, and it makes the battle scenes look very odd. You feel that these guys would shoot first and ask rhetorical questions afterwards.