If you missed StanShakes’ performances of Macbeth last weekend, you might want to consider flying to Scotland to see them perform in the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh this August. I grew up watching Shakespeare performed by CalShakes, a professional group not affiliated with the school across the bay, and I’m comfortable saying that at this point in my life I’m something of a Shakespeare snob. So I’m happy to report that the performance of Macbeth that I went to last Friday showed every bit of professionalism and originality that I’ve come to expect.

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John Shen

Macbeth being staged outside the Terman Engineering Building

The show was perhaps stolen a little by Leah Schwartz’s Lady Macbeth, whose glowering stares, glittering smiles and passionate kisses captivated me even as she slipped into madness. Her confused husband was played by David Terca, who really came into his element as his character was consumed by ambition. Other particularly impressive performances came from Zach Chotzen-Freund (Macduff) and Lila Kalaf (Hecate/Lady Macduff).

The entire cast remained onstage for most of the show, sitting in a semicircle at the back and sides of the stage, some facing away from the action and some toward. The costumes were mostly black, brown and white, with a clear contrast between King Duncan’s pure white costume and the Macbeths’ completely black attire. As the death toll mounted throughout the play, the characters who had killed smeared bloody handprints on a white sheet pinned to the center of the wall in the back of the stage.

The stage was the shallow, rectangular pond below Terman Engineering Building, an interesting choice to say the least. The water had been drained away, but that still left the open-air stage vulnerable to the hustle and bustle of a fairly central part of campus. Throughout the play, the headlights of cars turning from Lomita onto Santa Teresa swung eerily across the stage. Lights flicked on and off in Terman. At one point, a golf cart drove the length of the stage on the terrace above.

All of this did not detract at all from the play, but instead added to its spookiness. Most of us studied Macbeth in high school, where we got lost in its myriad issus, such as foul versus fair, and ambition and guilt. But enjoyment of Macbeth is not restricted to English majors, and the StanShakes production really succeeded in reminding the audience that the story is actually quite scary, full of ghosts, betrayal and murder.

And, of course, witches. If you saw the posters or programs for the play, you might have noticed the three masks decorating the otherwise stark, black bills. In the play, the witches, played by Fareez Giga, Julia Meltzer and Jillian Keenan, wore masks while performing the otherwise traditional undulating dances around the cauldron (sometimes to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” which I was neutral about, though I could imagine it annoyed Shakespeare traditionalists). Another interesting casting solution here, however, was that the witches also played roles in the court as Lennox, Ross and Angus respectively. The masks played a particularly fascinating role in a later scene, which involved all six of those characters as well as Macbeth and Hecate.

The set also contributed to the creepy image. On either side of the stage was a strange type of forest constructed from plywood A-frames, chicken wire, black cloth and some sort of tree branch, all lit in red and casting interesting shadows onto the stage. However, aside from this creepy effect, the set was not used to its full advantage; characters only interacted with the “trees” in the final scenes where Malcolm’s army storms Macbeth’s castle.

Some points that detracted from the play were the mediocre sound effects, which mostly consisted of repetitive knocking and bells. Also, parts of the play which Shakespeare inserted for comic relief, such as the drunken porter scene, failed to draw much laughter from the audience, perhaps a side effect of an otherwise admirable and successful attempt to take the play very seriously. Overall, however, I commend StanShakes on a job extremely well done. It was well worth braving the chilly night to watch this play (One audience member was heard to remark, “We need alcohol...to warm up”). Break a leg in Scotland this summer.