Macbeth is the most operatic of Shakespeare's plays, with its blood-and-thunder plot and the highly charged sexual relationship that makes it go. It presents archetypes–Man and Woman in Marriage–facing archetypal temptations–Advancement–and subject to archetypal punishments-Guilt and Death. So Macbeth is the perfect Shakespeare for presentation in the Japanese Kabuki style of performance, an approach as stylized and counter-realistic as opera. Certainly adapter-director Shozo Sato thinks so: Kabuki Lady Macbeth marks his return to the text, which he adapted first in the mid-1980s as Kabuki Macbeth. This version is more elaborate than the first-Sato now has the considerable resources of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, whereas before he worked with the hand-to-mouth Wisdom Bridge-but otherwise it serves to demonstrate only two things, each of which could be inferred from the previous production: that Lady Macbeth is a fascinating character, and that Shakespeare knew what he was doing when he put Macbeth instead of his wife front and center.
Despite a virtuoso-indeed, extraordinary-performance by Barbara Robertson in the title role, Kabuki Lady Macbeth collapses in the second act precisely because it's no longer able to depend on Shakespeare's architecture. In the original, Lady Macbeth has a single big scene after the murder of Duncan-"Out, out, damn'd spot"-and then dies, off-stage. But playwright Karen Sunde can't let her protagonist disappear, so instead she lets her run on, a single mad scene transformed into a recurring schtick which involves not just hand-washing but playing bocci with the heads of Macduff's family. At this point we've left the realm of Kabuki, or any other classical discipline, and wandered off into Grand Guignol. More important, by having Macbeth continue to tromp around deceiving himself after Lady Macbeth's collapse, Sunde destroys the dramatic and thematic scaffolding that supported Act I, the conceit that Macbeth and his lady are a single being.
Kabuki is the perfect vehicle for expressing this theme, as it permits devices like putting Lady Macbeth astride Macbeth's back to compel him to murder Duncan. This scene is the highlight of the evening: Robertson strips down from her elaborate kimono and robes and headgear to a glyph-covered unitard. The sight of her body, and its unimpeded movements, is a shock after nearly an hour of watching her walk in the crippled mince required of medieval Japanese ladies, and it conveys her character's power with a single brilliant stroke. Though Duncan takes too long to die for my taste, the final image of the act-ribbons of red crepe paper falling against a black backdrop-emphasizes with gorgeous clarity the bloody nature of the deed.
The strength of the Act I finale makes Act II all the more of a letdown, as the previously rapt audience revealed with an epidemic of coughing. But the second half's leisurely pace did allow reflection on the essence Sato has extracted from the play: that a woman's ambition, however extreme, may be seen as the inevitable result of the constraints to whichshe's subjected. That Lady Macbeth's ability to get anything done-goad her husband, plot against Macduff-is truly remarkable considering how little scope she has for acceptable movement or speech. (Sunde makes this point with Lady Macbeth's first line: "Waiting is hard.") That women-at least in the context of this work-represent the dark side of men. While Shakespeare's witches are a projection of Macbeth's own desires, Sunde's and Sato's exist as an independent feminine force, yin (as the witches say) to his yang.
But the slow pace of the second half also enables us to notice the text's insistence on pointing out the themes of yin-and-yang balance and of fate as the fool's name for his own choices. These ideas are put in the mouths of the three witches (Laura T. Fisher, George Keating and Elizabeth Laidlaw), who also are assigned the task of presenting the most exaggerated version of Kabuki's sing-song vocalization. It's hard to determine which is the true source of the annoyance they inspire: their voices, or the New Age content of what they're compelled to say. Likewise, it's difficult to determine whether Michael F. Goldberg's weakness as Macbeth is a characteristic of the actor or of the character; one can't, in fairness, hold him accountable for lines like "Who knew this would happen?" which would sound more at home in the Borscht Belt than in Japan or Scotland.
Sato's use of Kabuki techniques on Shakespeare contributes valuable insight to a pair of old traditions. But-like opera-it's an experience I would enjoy more while wearing earplugs. I love the sweep of opera, its elaborate presentation, its bold gestures; it's the singing I can't stand. By the same token, much of Kabuki-the poses, the awkward motions that call attention to the significance of moving, the white-face exaggeration of human facial expression-seems exciting and exotic (though the crossed-eye gesture of rage strikes me as irresistibly funny); but the vocalization assaults my ears like fingernails on a blackboard. Robertson alone among the actors is able to overcome the handicap of the exaggerated speech pattern to deliver a multi-layered, delicately shaded performance-perhaps because she uses less exaggeration than any of the others. Though I realize I'm mostly revealing my own ignorance of the performance styles of a great culture, I'm obliged to say that Kabuki is an acquired taste I have not acquired. For what it's worth, I'm equally hostile to Western art forms (Eliot's The Wasteland leaps to mind) that can't be appreciated without a pony.
But Kabuki Lady Macbeth is beautiful-Sato did the production design, with scenery by Katherine Ross and lighting by Michael Rourke-and its first half utterly gripping. It's worth seeing; just don't hesitate to leave at intermission if you've had enough.