Review: Macbeth (an Undoing) Is Revisionist Shakespeare for Depressed Feminists

Lady Macbeth: So resolute in the first two acts, when she’s urging her husband to commit regicide and helping him cover up the murder. What happens between then and Act 5, when she becomes a fragile clean freak who offs herself?

Playwright-director Zinnie Harris sets out to answer that question in Macbeth (an Undoing), now making its US debut with Theatre for a New Audience (the production was originally staged at Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and is remounted here in association with Rose Theatre). It’s a treatment guaranteed to thrill feminist dramaturgs while gently boring everyone else.

The first half is a fairly straightforward production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in attractive jazz age costumes (by Alex Berry). Harris lifts large chunks from the original text, with the actors slipping in and out of the verse as one might an oversize kilt — and with all the grace that image conjures.

After the battle, three weird sisters (Liz Kettle, Star Penders, and Emmanuella Cole) prophesize that Macbeth (Adam Best) will take the title of the slain Thane of Cawdor and become King thereafter. Additionally, they reveal that his bestie Banquo (James Robinson) will not wear the crown — but his descendants will. Lady Macbeth (Nicole Cooper) reads all about it (sans third prophecy) in a letter and decides to help fortune along when King Duncan (Marc Mackinnon) visits their castle. Macbeth murders the King and seizes the throne. Only too late does the childless Scot understand the implications of the third prophecy.

“My immortal soul sold to Satan to make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings,” Macbeth screams at his wife as if he had not left out this crucial detail in his letter. By the second half, Mac has lost his marbles (Harris gives him the “out damned spot” speech) and it is up to Lady to steer the ship of state, like a highland Edith Wilson.

It doesn’t help that many of the thanes refuse to recognize her authority, and those who remain loyal refer to her as “my Lord.” Are they being disrespectful, or is that a man they see before them? Why is it that a blood stain keeps appearing (Berry’s cleverest trick) on her pristine white dress? And why is it that only she can see it? I’m not crazy. You’re crazy!

Harris turns the spotlight on Lady Macbeth, which certainly seems like a better concept than rewriting Hamlet to focus on the Dane’s knucklehead friends. In her program note, scholar Tanya Pollard notes the line disparity in Shakespeare’s play between Mac (725) and Lady (263), like a post-debate analyst clocking the respective minutes spoken by Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. But is it the size of the part that counts, or how you use it?

Given far more lines than your typical Lady Macbeth, Cooper delivers a bravura performance, exuding superhuman strength, unflagging humor, and the will to overturn a story that has been set in ink since 1623. We almost believe she can — that if she dances backward in high heels hard enough, she will overcome fate and rectify the casual misogyny of the Anglosphere’s greatest dramatist. Cooper’s performance is the essential element that keeps this play from fully devolving into a dull academic exercise.

Her most interesting relationship is not with her husband, but with Lady MacDuff (Emmanuella Cole), here made explicitly her cousin (Shakespeare’s text merely alludes to the general incest among the Scottish nobility). The two women are so close that they refer to each other as “sister,” but as the play progresses this sorority takes on the contours of a hostage situation.

Cole’s sharp-elbowed performance lets us know that Lady MacDuff is no meek victim, however: When her sister insists that she bring her newborn to the Macbeth’s castle for safekeeping, she retorts, “And then? Hear that he died in your arms like all of yours?” The audience gasps from the gut-punch landed by this medieval mean girl.

The naturally hilarious Liz Kettle gives the other standout performance of the evening as Carlin, a composite of first witch, the porter, and Seyton. Her awkward encounters with Lady Macbeth show how appeals to female solidarity rarely extend to the working class.

Unfortunately, Harris’s production is not as well-executed as the performances. Scenic designer Tom Piper has built a palace of mirrors, a heavy-handed metaphor that asks the audience to take a good look at itself, but more often forces us to squint at the reflected glare of Lizzie Powell’s harsh lighting. Pippa Murphy’s caffeinated sound design regularly announces its presence, most confusingly in a scene in which Lady MacDuff comments on the lack of birdsong around the castle. Subpar design and a shaggy script contribute to the flagging momentum of the play as it ambles past the two-hour mark.

This is a shame because Lady Macbeth really does deserve more consideration than Shakespeare gives her. It’s not like the Bard didn’t have ample evidence of powerful female leadership in the real world, having enjoyed the patronage of a queen who executed her Scotch cousin, mother of the King for whom he wrote Macbeth. At least with Macbeth (An Undoing), Harris shows us the mafia kingpin living in the heart of every girlboss. Shakespeare might not have gone there with Lady Macbeth, but there’s always Margaret.