The Bard’s tragic tale delivered with passion, bit of levity

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This article was published 07/06/2025 (440 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As every true-crime fan knows, there’s something deeply fascinating about outwardly respectable people who dare to plan and carry out murder.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth still has the power to enthral audiences with its tale of a too-ambitious general who kills the Scottish king, usurps the throne and descends into increasingly depraved murders as his tormented mind fills up with “scorpions” of guilt.

Essential to the story are the three witches’ prophecies about Macbeth and his honourable friend Banquo, and the eternal question of whether we control our own destinies.

In great productions, “the Scottish play” is a horrifying tragedy. Its relevance to the current reign of the amoral, arrogant King Trump is striking.

Shakespeare in the Ruins’ Macbeth opened at the Trappist Monastery ruins in St. Norbert on Friday night, after its planned Thursday opening was cancelled because of wildfire smoke. Helmed by Emma Welham in her professional directing debut, the production doesn’t attain the dark intimacy or intensity to truly shock or chill.

This Macbeth, which runs 2 1/2 hours including intermission, also doesn’t equal the overall polished professionalism of some past SiR shows.

The only music is the ominous pounding of a drum. Anika Binding’s costumes and Lovissa Wiens’ minimal sets have the scrounged-up look usually seen at the fringe festival.

Men wear what look like polyester pants along with vaguely medieval-styled sashes, cloaks and hoods of synthetic fabric. The props include a plastic plant pot for the weird sisters’ cauldron.

Still, it’s compelling to watch the plucky cast of just seven actors throw everything they’ve got into a fiercely physical outdoor performance. The action includes scaling and jumping over walls, violent killings via stabbing, slashing and neck-cracking, and expertly choreographed sword fighting.

The ruins’ weathered brick and stone walls make a wonderfully evocative backdrop for an era of candlelit castles. The audience, which is issued lawn chairs, is led to five locations — perhaps one chair schlep too many — in and around the picturesque ruins and grounds.

Bits of levity arise from characters running in at full tilt to report the latest news, and from the witches popping up to tell the audience in rhyme that it’s time to change locations.

The actors refrain from spewing rapid torrents of text, carefully pacing their delivery so most of the lines can be understood.

Darren Martens as Macbeth and Lindsay Nance as Lady Macbeth make a picture-perfect couple, but lack dramatic ferocity as they proceed from entitled self-assurance to anguish and madness. Each has some strong moments, as well as too-guarded moments that don’t get at the guts of their roles.

Ideally, Macbeth should be so riveting that the audience can’t look away. Martens could make his voice and presence much bigger. He isn’t helped when the director places him too far from the audience.

Nance’s Lady Macbeth tends to be contained when we expect her to be furiously worked up, especially when she calls on the spirits to masculinize her, then taunts her husband into murder.

It’s unfortunate that Nance also has to play soldiers and other minor roles, which aren’t well differentiated.

Three actors display the mature technique to command the outdoor spaces. Ray Strachan is thrillingly passionate as Macduff.

Tracy Penner superbly embodies both the female Banquo (as well as her ghost) and Lady Macduff, holding nothing back emotionally. The latter’s screams of agony upon seeing her innocent son murdered are wrenching.

Tom Keenan creates multiple distinct characters, including King Duncan, a witch and the porter (gatekeeper) who likens the castle doors to the gates of Hell.

In a funny respite from the play’s “bloody business,” Keenan’s porter is a Scottish standup comic who teasingly interacts with audience members. More crowd participation ensues when folks are recruited to fill seats at the ghost-plagued banquet, but it distracts from — here’s that word again — the intensity of the scene.

The three witches, played by the male actors Keenan, Liam Dutiaume and Mackenzie Wojcik, are effectively conceived as shrieking, cawing, birdlike creatures in cloaks of white rags that suggest feathers.

When they exploit Macbeth’s ego by delivering their second set of riddle-like prophecies, they become grotesquely clownlike. The famous “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes” is broadly played for laughs.

While many productions of this masterwork bring out the hags’ comic dimensions, there’s something to be said for a more classical approach of letting the supernatural scenes be darkly frightening. This show may be a summer outing, but it could use more creepy chill.

arts@freepress.mb.ca