Macbeth

His clothes are soaked in blood. Blood covers her face and hair. It even comes out of the faucet as she tries to wash her hands. Upon leaving the Brookyn Academy of Music's production of Macbeth, audience members may want to check their own clothes for red spots. Having witnessed such a deeply felt, intensely immersed program, they may feel the need to utter, "Out, damn spots!" themselves.Staged at the BAM's tastefully decrepit Harvey Theater, Shakespeare's Scottish play is given a chilling resonance that permeates the audience with dread, despair and the inevitable acceptance of the two emotions. This achievement can be credited towards both the incredible aesthetics of the production and Patrick Stewart's performance in the title role, the viewing of which is an opportunity that presents itself once in a lifetime.The setting is a grimy, gloomy, pre-Iron Curtain Russia, and the production begins and ends with blood and death. Macbeth is first introduced as a war hero, stoic and straight-backed, with a quiet, clipped manner of speaking. He fits neatly in to the stark, grey set, from which actors enter and leave through an old-fashioned freight elevator that spews mist and fog every time it opens. High-tech light and sound effects are also utilized, inspiring feelings of fear and impatience – both of which are fully personified by the leading man.After his first encounter with the weird sisters (played with a gleeful fanaticism by Sophie Hunter, Polly Frame and Niamh McGrady), and with the encouragement of his wife (an excellent Kate Fleetwood), Macbeth is revealed to be a creature of thought and introspection – inevitably to a fault. Delivering his monologues in a dignified and restrained tone, Stewart gives the Thane of Cawdor's character a quiet reserve, which suits his bleak surroundings, rendered almost entirely in grey and contrasting sharply with the flowing red blood, reminiscent of Tim Burton's film adaptation of Sweeney Todd.This Macbeth is slow, deliberate and cautious. He is introspective to a fault and carefully mulls over the consequences of his actions. He is presented in utter contrast with his wife, who, at least twenty years younger than him, is hasty, passionate and impulsive. The relationship between the two is a collaboration in power as well as domesticity, giving a texture of irony to their cold-hearted calculations of murder. They duck into their kitchen in the midst of a dinner party to discuss how to kill their guest of honor, while simultaneously pulling a cake from the fridge and preparing to serve it for dessert. Another moment of levity occurs when, awaiting her husband's return from the king's chambers, Lady Macbeth questions if he was able to find the daggers she left for him in the same exasperated tone as a wife might wonder if a spouse was able to find the clean laundry left in the bedroom.The dynamics between the husband and wife are intensely heated and passionate. They are a couple so fiercely attracted to each other than they cannot remain in proximity without touching, but their relationship slowly dissolves into one of loathing and fear for each other and themselves. Stewart's depiction of Macbeth's descent into crime and desperation is thoughtful, quiet and restrained – and all the more poignant because of this. When he decides to have Banquo murdered, he delivers the orders to the assassins with rapid precision, while at the same time slicing bread and meat to assemble a sandwich. After offering bites to the assassins, he completes his speech and finalizes the details of the murder while talking with his mouth full.The presentation of Macbeth's decline is swiftly and fearfully staged, reaching its most frightening levels at his coronation ceremony when he sees the ghost of Banquo (Martin Turner) at the table. The scene is staged twice, once with the audience viewing it as Macbeth does, with a blood-soaked Banquo standing on the table and glaring at Macbeth and once with the audience viewing it as the dinner guests do, with no one there. The effect is nothing short of horrifying.The same adjective can be applied to Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene, also performed with admirable understatement, the murder of Banquo, which takes place on a dimly lit train, and the delivery of just about any line that the weird sisters say to Macbeth (the "double, double, toil and trouble" speech is delivered as a rap and the last three prophecies they tell to Macbeth are told by soldier's corpses still sealed in body bags).All of this is yes, horrifying, and exhausting to watch, but at the end of the production, no one is as exhausted as Macbeth. Worn out with fighting both for and against his fate, he has accepted that death is inevitable, stated in his soliloquy of "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," which he delivers with resignation and despair. After watching a production of such invention and caliber, one can only hope that this show would run just as long.