A look into ‘Macbeth’ production
reveals talent
Review by Sami Zahringer, Ojai Valley News

Ojai Art Center Theater's 'Macbeth' is smoothly running, vivid production
Review by Rita Moran, VC Star
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“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Wickedness has been with humanity since the dawn of man and, in the long history of evil, few studies of it have been as diabolical and scouring as Shakespeare’s notorious political thriller, “Macbeth,” now playing at the Ojai Art Center.

Macbeth and his lady are the ultimate power couple, emblems of unchecked ambition, treason, madness and murder in this “tale of sound and fury” in mist-wraithed, supernaturally charged, 11th- century Scotland.The play opens on a storm-blasted heath with three witches — unearthly “midnight hags,” all “withered” and “wild,” recounting their vindictive and cruel actions since their last meeting, as they await the p rophesied arrival of Macbeth. Played with dizzying, hideous, gap-toothed malice by Anna Kotula, Denise Heller and Aaliyah Mora-Khan, the witches strike a bone-chilling note of malevolence right from the start.

In an inspired piece of casting, there also is a Wild Child, played like a hellion by Coree Kotula. Her gollum-like scampering and eerie curlew  cries add a further other- worldliness to the scene.Macbeth and Banquo, fresh from defending King Duncan in battle, are re- pulsed by the “weird sisters,” asking them if they are human or spirits.

“Fair is foul and foul is fair” intone the witches indicating that in this play nothing will be as it seems and chaos will rule.
They tell Macbeth (Thane of Glamis) first that he will become Thane of Cawdor, and then “king hereafter.” They also tell Banquo that he will be father to a long line of future Scottish kings. The pair are confused but intrigued and when word reaches them that the king has indeed made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor, they start to believe there might be substance to the witches’ predictions. Once Lady Macbeth is informed, the sheer lust for power is dialed up and a bloody end seems both inevitable and unstoppable. A plan to kill the king starts to form.

Is Macbeth then a victim of the fates, doomed to be- come a murderer? Banquo’s ambition also is pricked by the prophesies but he doesn’t act on it.

Macbeth murders King Duncan of his own free will but, without the spurring wiles of his wife urging him to act like a man and pursue his ambition, he would “have been too full of the milk of human kindness” to become a murderer on his own.

Lady Macbeth, played with viperish, femme-fatale force by Jessi May Stevenson, is at the heart of the evil in the play. Stevenson, in a powerhouse of a performance, gives voice to a full-throated evil which is as unequivocal as it is bewitching. The transformation is mesmerizing as her devotion to her ambitious husband turns murderous and she invokes the spirits to fill her “from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty.”

When Macbeth fails to kill Duncan she does it herself.
 
But the violence and horror of what she has done proves a devastating assault on her sanity and she soon starts to unravel. Once fiery, glitteringly intense, and ruthless, Stevenson portrays Lady Macbeth’s shocking disintegration with reeling, terrified vulnerability. Having given herself wholly over to evil she is utterly destroyed by it.Macbeth, however becomes a greater and greater monster, killing his best friend Banquo and attempting to kill his young son, Fleance (Taylor Wilson). He becomes king, as planned, but a tyrannical, hated one.

Ron Feltner, in the title role, gives us a first-rate window into the mental agonies of a murderer, the fear of discovery, the lethal compounding of the crime, the callousing of his humanity and his final descent into numb nihilism.

“Macbeth” has some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeous and well-known lines and, under acclaimed Shakespeare veteran, Michael Addison’s direction, Feltner masters the poetry of the language with a subtle musicality that enhances the meaning of the words without distracting or detracting from them. His physicality changes with his darkening deeds, his brow grows more hooded, and we begin to see what a man without a soul looks like.

The supporting cast in this play is outstanding. Nigel Chisholm gives his Banquo an upright, soldierly nobility and a careful watchfulness that Macbeth fears. Although his ambition is aroused by the witches, he is suspicious of their motives and is the first to suspect that Macbeth has “played most foully” for the crown. Macbeth murders him and the spectral menace Chisholm presents as a ghost unnerves Macbeth vividly and convincingly. Byron Hays, as Duncan’s son Malcolm, the rightful heir to the throne, is exiled to England during the turmoil. Not knowing whom he can trust any more, he tests Macduff’s (Richard Kuhlman) loyalty by pretending to be a dissolute, waste of space unfit for the throne of Scotland. That scene between the two is a mini-masterpiece in the hands of these two experienced actors.

Kuhlman, as Macduff, is the moral conscience of the play. He is a man of action but feels the horrors of his crumbling world keenly. When Macbeth has his family murdered he is almost lost to grief, but Malcolm, showing princely leadership, pulls him back to action.

Unfortunately, space prohibits mention of the many other accomplished performances in this production, but Addison’s cast is a polished, cohesive whole in sterling service to one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.

Note must be made of the lush period costumes, the deep, evocative, off-stage drum-beat punctuating moments of action and violence, and the truly extraordinary set. Addison and his production designers Kenny Dahle and Carol Shaw Sutton transport us back to the Dark Ages, with a set as raw and primitive as the emotions in the play. Great root-like tangles bring us down to a dark, netherworld of the mind where thoughts twist and decency is strangled.

The deliciousness of Shakespeare’s exquisite language set in such darkness and disorder is one of the most pleasurable tensions in the play and the cast preserves all the mysterious poetry and tonal variations of the script, to be found in the script, to be found in the very best “Macbeth” productions.

Ojai A.C.T.’s “Macbeth” is produced by Joan Kemper and Stewart Crowner working with resident artistic director Richard Camp, who has put together an exceptionally exciting season of theater.

Under Addison’s direction, and with that strange and remarkable set evoking mental torture and degraded humanity, this raging, breathtaking production focuses on the ruinous, psychological depths of the soul unhinged by power-lust.

To get a taster of the show, go to https://www. ojaiact.org to see the principal actors, and listen to Camp and Addison discussing the play on KZSB Arts Radio with Elizabeth Stewart.
 
Video by StephenAdamsPhoto.com
Whirling witches and bloody battles signal “Macbeth” is back on stage and ready to roil the theatrical waters.

Shakespeare’s tragedy at the Ojai Art Center Theater involves the work of many hands and hearts, beginning with director Michael Addison, who brings to the task a lifetime of theater experience both onstage and off. Presenters for the challenging project include the center’s artistic director Richard Camp and the Ojai Performing Arts Theater, with executive producer Joan Kemper and producer Stuart Crowner. 

Ojai’s “Macbeth” is a smoothly running and vivid production in which characters come and go quickly on a set that creates an evocative environment well suited to the fast-paced action.

As the drama opens, the famed Three Witches stir the pot with ominous premonitions. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair. …” they warn, then return periodically until the stage has been covered with bodies of those Macbeth and Lady Macbeth considered obstacles to their grasp for total power in a land where swords hold sway.
The eerie witches (Anna Kotula, Denise Heller and Aaliyah Mora-Khan) are joined by 11-year-old Coree Kotula as a spirited and impressively agile Wild Child enhancing the mysterious scenes. She also appears briefly as the young son of the Scottish Macduff and Lady Macduff, among the various rivals for power the Macbeths dispose of along the way.

Ron Feltner as Macbeth, honored by the Scottish King Duncan for his prowess in battle, and Jessi May Stevenson as Lady Macbeth, who supports and prods her husband as he gradually embraces the concept that he should be the leader of Scotland, demonstrate how once the lust for power is stirred it often can’t be stopped. 

True to Shakespeare’s concept, Macbeth is slowly drawn into the plotting, fueled by his wife’s more single-minded approach. For both, the more blood they spatter or coax others to spatter, the more powerful is the drive for the ultimate dominance of their country. Stevenson’s Lady Macbeth is fiercely drawn, more ferocious than most of the male warriors and vibrant until the trauma of constant battle and guilt drains her spirit.

Nigel Chisholm as Banquo, the man who was considered the logical person to pick up the role of leader after the king’s death, is one of the many brutally dispatched by the Macbeths and their followers. Other principal players include Daniel Ruark as King Duncan; Byron Hays and James Baker as his sons; and Richard Kuhlman and Jolene Rae Harrington as Macduff and Lady Macduff. 
The cast of more than 20, some playing multiple roles, acquits itself well, whether portraying noble souls, villains or underlings.

One of the most familiar players, Bill Spellman as Macbeth’s attendant, adds to his list of amusingly bumbling characterizations, garnering giggles in the otherwise dark action.

Adding an ominous beat throughout the play is percussionist John Lacques, whose artful drumming provides a haunting reminder that evil is afoot. 

Photo by Tom Moore

Rita Moran can be reached at rita.j.moran@gmail.com.

Society805.com review
Erik ReeL, Society805.com Art and Culture Contributing Editor at Large

When it rains, it pours, they say.  While we don’t get a lot of professional Shakespeare in our regional theatre, and thus one would expect there to not be much of a pool of Shakespearean actors locally, the 805 currently has two major Shakespeare plays on offer:  Rubicon’s fine King Lear, and The Ojai Art Center Theater’s Macbeth. Not only that, but both productions are trying to do something new and interesting with their productions.

Both productions feature relatively, for the 805, innovative sets that work quite well.  The Ojai’s Director, Michael Addison, and Artistic Director, Richard Camp, say they wanted to do a more ambitious Macbeth and bring in collaborations with local artists into the production.  This is very effective as they get a rich, textured set design from Kenny Dahle and Carol Shaw with lots of help from the Ojai Fiber Collective of Kyle Crowner, Pat Edwards, Carol Shaw Sutton, Mary Mohr, and Wendy Osher, complimented by solid costume design from Mary Crane.

The highlight of the artist collaborations is the bringing in of John Lacques, a percussionist with exceptional improvisation talent to provide a very effective percussion sound-track for the entire play.  This alone makes a huge difference and separates this production of Macbeth from every other performance you are likely to see.
While Ojai’s community theatre cannot hope to match the depth of talent that the professional Rubicon company brings to bear in their Lear, especially in terms of Shakespeare experience, Ojai does put together a remarkably good cast.

One of the primary reasons to see this Macbeth is to see Jessi May Stevenson’s Lady Macbeth.  This is a sizzling, deliriously thrilling Lady Macbeth from the manipulations of her opening lines to her fall into suicidal delirium.  

Stevenson’s partner in real life, Ron Feltner, plays Macbeth. The couple takes full advantage of this to add more than a little heat to their opening encounters.  Feltner’s is an astounded, stumbling Macbeth; an approach that hooks our empathy into following him on every turn of his confused fall into the temptations of power, and the resulting treachery and madness. This is an all-too-human Macbeth, an approach Feltner has used in past parts, in particular his painfully felt rendition of Anthony in Outside Mullingar at the Santa Paula Theater.  Feltner seems to have a talent for Celtic obtuseness … if there ever will be a script taken out of Finnegan’s Wake, Feltner will be ready for it.  

In contrast, Stevenson’s Lady Macbeth is all radiant light and fire, thus convincing us all the more acutely that her fall into madness might be that much quicker and on a faster burn. Otherwise Shakespeare’s Macbeth has always presented us with a subtle contradiction: why does Lady Macbeth, who is so much sharper, with her wits so much more about her in the beginning, fall into madness and suicide so much faster than Macbeth himself? It is a question few actresses and director’s answer, but Stevenson illuminates the script, showing us the way as to how this should be so.

The ensemble work of the large cast carries the rest of the show, a credit to both director and cast members.  A few special kudos are deserved for Daniel Ruark’s Duncan, who is literally almost better dead than alive, and the real ringer in the proceedings: Susan Kelejian’s Ross, who delivers some first-rate Shakespeare in her opening lines while showing that a woman playing a Scots noble plays quite well on stage, thank you very much.  You cannot hide talent even when it is deep down on the cast lists, and cast against type.

As usual, the witches are an audience favorite, this time around aided by a wild child, played by Coree Kotula who does some especially fine physical acting, a high achievement for someone of any age, let alone an 11-year-old who can now honestly claim to be related to a witch.

Overall it is a lively and entertaining show, much more fun than the ponderous, overwrought renditions of Shakespearen tragedy that are more the usual case.