Sam Gold Shakes Up ‘Macbeth’ on Broadway, and Most of Its Pieces Fall Nicely Into Place

It’s considered bad luck for anyone involved in a production of “Macbeth” to say the play’s title out loud, but this bit of caution is thrown to the wind in director Sam Gold’s new Broadway staging, starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga.Before the action even begins, Michael Patrick Thornton, the actor cast as the nobleman Lennox, amiably delivers a little historical background, and in doing so refers to “the Scottish play” by its given name more than once. He then encourages audience members to do the same, albeit by mouthing the word silently.It’s a signal — an unnecessary one, for anyone familiar with Mr. Gold’s work — that this “Macbeth” will not play it safe. The director has earned wide praise for his stripped-down interpretations of both classics and new works, and for embracing nontraditional casting more comprehensively than many of his peers had until recently. His last Broadway production, of “King Lear,” starred Glenda Jackson in the title role; and his 2017 revival of “The Glass Menagerie” featured Madison Ferris, who became the first performer to use a wheelchair in a principal role on Broadway.Mr. Thornton uses a wheelchair as well, and the racially diverse company of this “Macbeth” also includes a non-binary actor, Asia Kate Dillon, cast as Malcolm, the faithful son of Macbeth’s first victim, King Duncan. Phillip James Brannon becomes the latest male actor to play a witch, and Macbeth’s fellow general Banquo is portrayed as a woman — and a doting mother — by a graceful Amber Gray.None of these choices are particularly surprising in 2022, of course, and the true measure of Mr. Gold’s daring lies in his willingness to delve into the dark recesses and contradictions that exist within Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and around them. On these counts, he and his actors and design team succeed admirably, if not always thrillingly.Christine Jones’s set is predictably stark, creating a vast space in which a table placed stage right indicates a kitchen. The first sensory attack is the smell of onions, as actors prepare food before the performance begins; they then become witches preparing spells as others around them wield fog machines. Gaelynn Lea’s eerie incidental music enhances the aggressively ominous tone.The kitchen area also helps reinforce the uneasy domesticity at play in “Macbeth,” from the central couple’s marriage to that of Lady Macduff, who feels abandoned when her husband leaves Scotland in order to convince Malcolm to return and defy Macbeth. Maria Dizzia is cleverly cast as both Lady Macduff and one of the witches, and she inhabits both roles with delightful wryness.Any “Macbeth” rides on its leads, though, and Mr. Craig and Ms. Negga deliver performances that both benefit from and transcend their movie-star charisma. Mr. Craig’s last New York stage appearance was an off-Broadway “Othello” directed by Mr. Gold, in which the actor played Iago. Confronted with a more morally complicated, conflicted character here, Mr. Craig brings witty nuance to the role, along with, when called for, fire and palpable despair.Ms. Negga, also an experienced stage actor, gives us a Lady Macbeth who is unapologetically feminine and sensual — no mean feat when your character gasses on about wanting to “unsex” herself. Like other directors before him, Mr. Gold emphasizes the affection and passion that bind the Macbeths until everything goes to hell, but without overreaching; the sexual energy between these partners in love and crime feels relaxed, posing an effective contrast to the more corrosive tension that eventually develops.This “Macbeth” doesn’t always avail itself of such discretion. Some touches are too cute by half, such as when an actor cast in more than one role jumps abruptly from one character’s moment of tragedy to another’s display of buffoonery. While the final showdown between Macbeth and Macduff (a dignified Grantham Coleman) is rivetingly staged, a sequence that follows feels mannered and unnecessary.Mr. Gold’s “Macbeth” is nonetheless among the more imaginative and affecting ones you’re likely to see on Broadway, where Shakespeare’s shortest and most accessible tragedy has now been staged five times since 2000 alone. I suppose that murder, treachery, and doomed ambition never go out of style — and luck certainly has nothing to do with that.

Sam Gold Shakes Up ‘Macbeth’ on Broadway, and Most of Its Pieces Fall Nicely Into Place

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