Review: MACBETH at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum

Amidst the flurry of theatre closures and mass-layoffs during the early days of the pandemic, I wrote an article that expressed fear that the Anglo-American regional theatre model developed over the past 50 years has failed us. It has failed to incentivize a culture of theatrical excellence, has largely been inaccessible, and remains uncritically supported by administrators and militaristically defended by young people who have wagered their futures on working their way through the ranks of quickly-crumbling institutions. The announcement last week that Center Theatre Group will be pausing programming at the Mark Taper Forum for the coming season, which cited “ever-increasing production costs with significantly reduced ticket revenue and donations” as the primary cause, felt like an added assertion that something in the standard regional model just isn’t working in the twenty-first century. Will we see these bloated non-profit structures left as empty carcasses strewn across the western world?

When I crossed the bridge to enter the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, now celebrating its 50th season, it was immediately clear that there is something alive in this space which has long been dead in America’s larger theatres— if it ever lived there at all. It immediately felt like a community-informed poultice to the standard workings of a major arts venue. There is a quaint charm and quiet magic to the gardens, filled with picnicking families and little huts serving as box office and concessions stand. Beyond the immediate rustic feeling, it quickly became clear that this venue was crawling with regulars— and I’m not talking about stuffy, old donors with comps for opening night. Flocks of children raced about, regaling each other with anecdotes from the theatre’s summer camp, elderly folks shared memories of seeing Will Geer himself in the garden, and a proud mother burst to the front of the will call line in one of the most dramatic performances of the evening, “Excuse me, I must get to the front. Please! My son is in the play!” The familial vibes continued as I read through the throngs of program bios, noting how many actors had made their debut on the Theatricum stage as Titania’s purloined changeling and children behind me excitedly heralded the entrances of their camp instructors on stage.

The performance itself was a straightforward, text-driven version of Macbeth. Nothing to write home about, but that’s okay— other than Twilight: Los Angeles, I don’t think CTG has presented anything to write home about this season either. Director Ellen Geer has not ignored a word of Shakespeare’s text (aside from eliminating that pesky, antisemitic line from the Witches’ song in Act IV), and has crafted a production which seems obsessed with clarity, but doesn’t present any theatricality or inventiveness beyond relaying the narrative. For instance, I was excited when, in Act II, King Duncan presented Lady Macbeth with a diamond ring upon his arrival at Inverness. The diamond is later mentioned by Banquo, but I have never seen a production include it in the staging. As Lady Macbeth and her husband become obsessed with costumes— mentioning ‘borrowed robes’ and looking like ‘the innocent flower’— and concerned with the cleanliness of their hands, I was excited to see how a ring and symbol of Duncan’s naive gratitude came into play. The whole thing felt like a Chekhovian gun that never fired as the ring made an appearance and never returned. It is a small detail, but one which signifies my experience of the production overall: I was excited by choices being made, only to realize they were entirely arbitrary and rarely followed through to a satisfying conclusion.

It took until Act V to really see a scene in which two actors seemed worthy sparring partners who had fully dropped into their roles. Aaron Hendry’s Macduff filled the space with a vocal bravura that was supported and never felt like shouting (there was a lot of shouting going on in this production). As he berated and implored the return of Malcolm to Scotland, Christopher Glenn Gilstrap (an understudy who usually plays a witch) countered the scene with crisp clarity of purpose and fiery drive. One of the treasures of seeing Shakespeare’s works done in repertory companies is dreaming of favorite actors playing other characters; I’d love to see Hendry take on Hal and to see Gilstrap’s Hamlet. Shortly after the scene, the production employs live underscoring through use of an offstage drum. The action becomes tense and dramatic in ways that the canned underscoring throughout the earlier acts has failed to conjure.

Max Lawrence’s Macbeth is haunted by a melodramatic flair that felt stylistically opposed to the rest of the cast. Many of his most famous speeches felt like recitations of hallowed text rather than the tortuous exploration of moral quandaries, and the repeated “park-and-bark” downstage center placement doesn’t help. Willow Geer’s Lady Macbeth chased a different affection for every line of text. It is clear she knows the meaning and intention of every word, but the choices are not molded into an overarching characterization, and she therefore seems frenetic and nebulously silly.

The evening soars by and the audience overall seemed to enjoy themselves. So much of the success of Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum seems to be that they are unashamed to model themselves as a unique vision of what a theatre can be. The impressive list of performers hail from professional and amateur backgrounds, the educational programming seems central to the mission of the theatre, and the entire persona of the organization drips with love for what they do.

Here’s to another 50 years!

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