If you’re looking for wicked witchcraft, look no farther than 3111 N. Western Ave., where the Defiant Theatre has mounted an impressively spooky, occult version of “Macbeth” in the hangar-like performing space of The Viaduct.
Director Christopher Johnson has set the Scottish play in the deepest of the dark ages, when witches, satanic forces, a host of demons and sacrificial rituals were considered a palpable substance of the world of evil.
It’s clear here that the devil made Macbeth do it, and it is the devil and his goatlike minions who surface in the clanging, climactic battle to lead their victim into death and damnation.
Knowing Defiant Theatre’s reputation for cheekiness, one might figure that the three weird sisters of the play would be cast as young women barely clothed. And this production does not disappoint. You get what a warning sign describes as “partial nudity” from Heather L. Tyler, Cherise Silvestri and Stefanie Neuhauser.
Along with this, however, Johnson’s intelligent production offers a battery of sound and lighting effects, plus giant puppets and lots of rolling fog. The sound and music design, by Brian and Matthew Callahan, enforces the pervasive aura of creepiness, from a blanket hum of crickets and hoot owls to a roaring clap of thunder. And the lighting, by B. Emil Boulos, summons up both the red fires of hell and sudden, dramatic shafts of brilliant white.
The play runs about three hours, which includes some wordless inserts that Johnson has devised to highlight the supernatural elements.
He has not neglected the text or story, however. The action moves swiftly on the large drumlike platform that designer Martin McClendon has created and the cast of nearly two dozen actors, though not skilled in Shakespearean delivery, gets the speeches out clearly and forcefully.
Christopher Thometz’s Macbeth is a thoughtful, careful man, goaded on by ambition and lust, personified by Krissy Shields’ voluptuous Lady Macbeth. Learning of his wife’s death, he falls to the floor in a heap and unleashes a rendition of the famous “Tomorrow and tomorrow…” soliloquy brimming with last-ditch desperation.
Geoff Coates as Banquo, Sean Sinitski as Macduff and Jim Slonina as a boyish Malcolm are action figures straight from a medieval tapestry. Dressed in Michelle Lynette Bush’s costumes, they look as if they really are thanes of 11th Century Scotland.
Slonina’s Malcom, shorter than the rest of the warlords, is seen first as a rather smug, vacuous young prince, but he convincingly changes into leader of passion and wit when, interrupting his prayers, he puts Macduff’s loyalty to his country to the test.
The whole production has the rough, raw air of a medieval mystery play, charged with violence and spiritualism.
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“Macbeth”
When: Through Dec. 16
Where: Defiant Theatre at The Viaduct, 3111 N. Western Ave.
Phone: 312-409-0585
