Theater review: APT’s ‘Macbeth’ Stalks the Halls with Blind Ambition and Bloody Hands

By Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times, July 8, 2019

The trouble, for Macbeth, isn’t getting the crown. The trouble is keeping it.

A visceral new production of Shakespeare’s tragedy at American Players Theatre seethes with violence and distrust, led by Marcus Truschinski and Melisa Pereyra as the passionate power couple. It feels cinematic, set among obelisks cut to look like stone and lurid up-lighting on the trees behind the stage. 

Known among superstitious theater folk as Shakespeare’s “Scottish play,” “Macbeth” last played at APT in 2005 with Jim DeVita in the title role. This time DeVita is in the director’s chair, and he brings the same powerful storytelling and aesthetic consistency that he did to “Richard III” in 2012.

DeVita frames “Macbeth” with battle. In the opening moments, warriors rush through the prairie brush straight onto the stage as insistent drums draw them forward. We get a glimpse of Macbeth as a fighter, as well as what he stands to lose — his closest friend, Banquo (Laura Rook), his ally Macduff (Gavin Lawrence), the admiration of his fellow warriors.

While most high schoolers know how the play ends, this “Macbeth” proves it’s still a wrenching ride. The “weird sisters” tell Macbeth he’s destined to be king, and it’s like he’s been handed One Ring to rule them all (Tolkien knew his classics). Macbeth gets a second title, thinks of the baby in his wife’s belly and starts down a murderous path.  

Read the full review here!