DazMann Still (center) as Macbeth, with Anuj Parikh (left) as Macduff and David Arthur Bachrach as the Doctor, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, presented by Frog & Peach Theatre Company at The John Cullum Theater.
The Frog & Peach Theatre Company—fancifully named for a classic comedy sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore—has been producing William Shakespeare’s plays on shoestring budgets for three decades. Currently, this scrappy Manhattan troupe is promoting its presentation of Macbeth with the tag line: “What if a madman were king?” That’s cheeky marketing that captures the directorial vision of Lynnea Benson, who’s at the helm.
Amy Frances Quint as Lady Macbeth, with her husband who always wears his crown, in the Frog & Peach production of Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy.
Macbeth is the shortest, most compact of Shakespeare’s tragedies. It’s a dark work, with most of the scenes taking place at night or in shadowy locations. Weird portents, many of them weather-related, punctuate the Bard’s narrative. (Appropriately, the show is playing at the sort-of-spooky American Theatre of Actors on West 54th Street.) “Fair is foul and foul is fair,” chant three Witches in the opening scene; and Macbeth (DazMann Still), making his first entrance, echoes the three hags’ oxymoronic phrase: “So fair and foul a day I have not seen.” Things are topsy-turvy in Scotland, where the play takes place, and they’ll get crazier as the story rolls along.
The Witches (Vivien Landau, Jaixa Irizarry, and Erica Cafarelli) introduce themselves to Macbeth with extravagant greetings: “Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! … Thane of Cawdor! … All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” Macbeth is indeed Thane of Glamis, but he's not Cawdor and has no prospect of gaining that title. Though he’s a second cousin of King Duncan (Oliver Conant), Macbeth is too low on the ladder of royal succession to hold any expectation of inheriting the throne. Hearing the Witches’ predictions about his future, Macbeth (as embodied by the physically imposing Still) appears merely bemused. He’s a cool customer, but the machinery of greed and overweening ambition may be discerned, running at top speed, behind this actor’s piercing, near-bulging, dark eyes.
The three Witches (Jaixa Irizarry, Vivien Landau, and Erica Cafarelli) huddle around their burning cauldron in Frog & Peach’s Macbeth. Photographs by Ashley Garrett.
In a recent interview published online, Benson comments, "There is something about Macbeth, how one crime turns to tyranny, that seems to speak to our modern times, with drug cartels and social media, one moral flip soon digging a great big hole." In Still, Benson has found a leading actor with grandeur and macho poise to explain why the people around Macbeth—especially King Duncan and the ultra-patriotic General Banquo (Eric Doss)—place their trust in him so readily (and so foolishly).
This streamlined production focuses on Macbeth's deep-seated corruptibility to the exclusion of any redeeming qualities. In pillow talk with Lady Macbeth (Amy Frances Quint), he posits arguments against murdering King Duncan and usurping the throne. As acted by Still, however, Macbeth’s resistance seems too tentative to qualify as a moral stance or to hold any promise of scotching his bloodiest urges. He’s a bad apple, shiny on the outside and rotten to the core, a melodramatic villain instead of a flawed tragic hero. He’s the madman of the Frog & Peach marketers’ tag line.
With the Bard’s text cut to bare bones, the show is fleet and energetic. Scenic designer Evan Frank has created a no-obstacles set, freeing actors and stagehands to keep moving at a clip appealing to spectators bred on action movies. Marcus Watson's fight and battle choreography delivers clanging, swashbuckling swordplay throughout. Victoria Brown's militaristic costumes support Benson's transfer of the action to a realm of emerging fascism; and the campy (sometimes ill-fitting) togs she provides for the newly formed court of King Macbeth in the second half (especially those for Lady Macbeth and her husband, who constantly wears his crown) evoke the faux regality of photos and video footage from the recently redecorated Oval Office.
Nina David as Lady Hamilton and David Elyha as the Porter at Glamis Castle in Frog & Peach’s Macbeth.
In terms of actorly technique (especially aptitude in handling Renaissance language), the cast is uneven to a degree seldom encountered in New York City companies where ticket prices are more formidable. But there are actors here whose skill deserves special mention: Quint as Lady Macbeth, Anuj Parikh (Macduff), Chase Cortland Erwin (Donalbain), and Nina David (Lady Hamilton). With respect to the ensemble as a whole, spirit counts for a lot when playing to audiences unversed in Shakespeare’s canon, and Frog & Peach always delivers spirited Shakespeare.
In the previously mentioned interview, Benson (the company's co-founder and artistic director, as well as director of Macbeth) declares: “Everybody should be able to access high-quality theater that’s not trying to sell you a lunch pail or a pair of sneakers.” With its stated conviction that “Shakespeare is for everybody,” Frog & Peach has been serving playgoers of slender means for 30 years with unstuffy, affordable entertainment that features a distinctive point of view and a few surprises.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, presented by Frog & Peach Theatre Co. Inc., plays through March 29 in The John Cullum Theater at American Theater of Actors (314 W. 54th St.). Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (plus Wednesday, March 25); matinees are 3 p.m. on Sundays. For tickets and information, visit frogandpeachtheatre.org.
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Director: Lynnea Benson
Set Designer: Evan Frank
Costume Designer: Victoria Brown
Lighting Designer: JJ Jayaraman
Violence & Intimacy Coordinator: Marcus Watson
