STAGE REVIEW: EQUIVOCATION



Sharpe (Dane Oliver) and Nate (Alan Blumenfeld) in Equivocatoin. Photo by Ian Flanders.



Anonymous anyone?

 

By Ed Rampell

 

This summer, to celebrate the 450^th anniversary of the playwright and poet from Stratford-upon-Avon’s birth, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum presented an all-Shakespeare-all-the-time repertory season at its leafy amphitheater perched in Topanga Canyon. (Usually WGTB varies its annual program with a mixture of Shakespearean, other classic and original plays.) The final work of the lot is not by, but rather about, the Bard -- or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

 

Ted Barton, who’d previously portrayed the dramatist at WGTB’s July ceremony honoring William Shakespeare’s birth, plays a similarly named wordsmith, “Shagspeare,” in award winning palywriter Bill Cain’s Equivocation. This two-act drama with some humorous touches imagines a Shakespeare-like playwright receiving what is literally a command performance: A royal commission to write about Guy Fawkes and England’s 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a piece of agitprop that presents the government’s point of view, to be performed by the theatre company Shagspeare belongs to.

 

The Gunpowder Plot was an actual conspiracy to blow up King James and the Houses of Parliament that took place while Shakespeare was still alive. In any case, it’s beyond the scope of this review to go into details about the revolutionary scheme, but many readers will be familiar with Guy Fawkes masks, which depict a smirking face with a mustache upturned at each end and a goatee. These masks were popularized in the 2006 movie Vendetta and more recently have adorned the faces of protesters, from Occupy Wall Street to Anonymous, et al.

 

Shagspeare -- or “Shag”, as he is called for short (or perhaps in homage to the Tiki Pop artist of that name?) -- is, as stated, a member of a theatre company. Equivocation is at its thought provoking best when it ponders the role of theater and politics, plays and propaganda, or, to paraphrase Lenin, “the stage and revolution.” There is swordplay as well as wordplay, including a definition of what equivocation means that this reviewer had never considered before.

 

The work, which lasts about two and a half hours or so, is extremely complex, even convoluted, and this critic found it difficult to follow. This complexity is compounded by a play within a play, as at one point the troupe of thesps performs a truncated version of Macbeth. Although the cast consists of only six (small by Theatricum standards), it seems that at least some of the actors play multiple roles. If this reviewer understood that aspect of the production correctly, the playbill (say, were these publications named after Shakespeare? inquiring minds want to know) only listed one role per thesp, which only adds to the confusion. One can guess that all of the above reflects the fact that Bill Cain is, literally, a Jesuit priest.

 

In addition to probing the role of art vis-à-vis politics, nine years after the 400^th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot the play’s plot has interesting references to our 21^st century world. There is the torture that has filled the stage and screen (think, for example, 24 and Jack Bauer) since the Cheney-Bush regime got into the euphemistically named “enhanced interrogation” biz at Guantanamo and “black sites” that straddle (and strangle) the globe. Indeed, this is the second WGTB production this summer wherein torture is a plot point.

 

Even more ominously, like Aeschylus’ Persians-- which is on the boards at WGTB’s neighbor down the long and winding road a bit at Malibu -- Equivocation also depicts a beheading. Both of these decapitations are occurring onstage just as ISIS maniacs are making videos (with “high production values”, as newscasters/propagandists for some reason rarely fail to point out) of the poor Western journalists and aid workers whose heads these terrorists are busy chopping off.

 

Furthermore, Equivocation was launched shortly before the referendum on independence for Scotland which, like the Gunpowder Plot, had the potential to greatly alter what is now call the United Kingdom. Even more eerie is the fact that as previously mentioned, Equivocation stages bits of Macbeth, which is nicknamed “the Scottish play.”

 

Barton is fine as the pantalooned Shag, as is Taylor Jackson Ross as his daughter. Judith, who is, alas, the ensemble’s only female member (unless you include a brief drag sequence -- after all, in Shakespeare’s day, all of the roles were depicted at the Globe by males). The interplay between father and daughter has something of a Shakespearean quality, a bit in the mode of King Lear (which is also on the repertory’s roster this season). Alan Blumenfeld is able as the ailing Nate and full of the romping pomposity this seasoned actor emanates in his more comic roles. As Sharpe, Dane Oliver steals many of the scenes he’s in as a preternaturally hammy, preening “ac-teur!” Mike Peebler deftly directs this complicated stew that this reviewer, fan as he is of the Theatricum, only wishes he could more unequivocally recommend to avid amphitheatergoers. Until next summer, this erstwhile critic bids his favorite theatre company adieu!

 

Equivocation runs through Oct. 4 at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information: 310)-55-3723; www.Theatricum.com.

 

 

STAGE REVIEW: ROMEO AND JULIET

A scene from Romeo and Juliet.

1000

By Ed Rampell

“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” Why, along with his gal pal Juliet, he’s at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion through Sunday, July 13, as the National Ballet of Canada presents Sergei Prokofiev’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Alexei Ratmansky, the Bolshoi Ballet’s former artistic director, choreographed this elegant production that renders William Shakespeare’s immortal play about doomed young lovers into the idiom of dance and music, pure sight and sound.

As we celebrate the 450^th birthday of the Bard who is best known for his plots and arguably (to quote Polonius in Hamlet) “this above all else” his dialogue, it’s intriguing to encounter a Shakespearean experience minus a single spoken line. Can one appreciate the Stratford-upon-Avon dramatist’s work without one word uttered? Is the text as meaningful without any of Will’s indelible dialogue, such as Mercutio’s curse: “A plague upon both your houses”? (Contrary to popular belief, Romeo’s buddy was not referring to the Democratic and Republican parties, but rather to those warring families, the Capulets and Montagues, from whence our title characters sprang.)

The characters and the entire story are expressed through Prokofiev’s music, Ratmansky’s gravity-defying choreo, Jennifer Tipton’s lighting, as well as by Richard Hudson’s set and costume design, which are all important, as they enhance a sense of time (the Renaissance) and place (“fair Verona”). Another important element that tends to be overlooked amidst ballet’s Balanchine- and Nijinsky-like aeronautics is acting. Since there is no spoken dialogue this acting is most akin to that of the cinema prior to talkies, when thespians had to use facial expressions, body movements and the like to convey what they couldn’t by voicing lines. (Notice, Dear Reader, that I didn’t say “silent films,” because many of those early movies were accompanied by piano and even orchestras -- often with music specifically composed for particular pictures. And given Prokofiev’s sonorous score, the ballet is anything but silent.)

Although not as essential as their dancing per se, on opening night the acting by Moscow-born Elena Lobsanova and Quebec-born Guillaume Côté as Shakespeare’s “star-crossed lovers” (other dancers alternate in the Juliet and Romeo roles) was vital in conveying the drama’s romanticism and adolescent angst (worthy of a WB series, by the way). The premiere’s best acting was by Poland-born Piotr Stanczyk as the mercurial, merry Mercutio of the Montagues. His clowning around (Mercutio is surely one of those people who doesn’t know when to quit kidding or enough is enough) is as significant to Stanczyk’s part as is his deft, daft dancing. Not to mention the scene-stealing Stanczyk’s swordplay, as Mercutio crosses blades with the Capulet clan’s menacing McGee Maddox as Tybalt, the quintessential character when it comes to not quite getting the joke. (Both Stanczyk and Maddox alternate in the roles with other performers, but reprise their parts on the evening of July 12.)    

Naturally, the choreography elevates and heightens the drama. When the title characters meet at a masked ball in the Capulets’ household, it’s interesting to see the ballet version of this initial encounter and to compare it with the brilliantly lensed scene in the school gym in 1961’s West Side Story, where all time and space stops as Tony just meets a girl named Maria in that latter day adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set in New York City. When she leaps through the air to alight upon Romeo’s shoulders or back, 27-ish year old Elena Lobsanova’s Juliet seems to be in flight. The two lovers look like birds taking wing in an almost aerial pas de deux in her bedroom, with its four-poster bed and canopy -- an especially lyrical evocation of lovemaking’s raptures. 

From the vantage point of my center row seats in the orchestra, Lobsanova and Côté also looked like teenagers, which seems age appropriate per Shakespeare’s text. The youthfulness of 18-year-old Leonard Whiting and 17-year-old Olivia Hussey helped make Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film version so refreshing and memorable, whereas in 1936, 43-year-old Leslie Howard and 34-year-old Norma Shearer essayed the roles in George Cukor’s screen version of  Romeo and Juliet -- with a 54-year-old John Barrymore as Mercutio!)

Prokofiev’s superb score, which he’d composed by 1935, is ably performed by an orchestra consisting of local musicians and conducted by the National Ballet of Canada’s music director and principal conductor, David Briskin. Audiences will likely recognize the dissonant "Dance of the Knights", which has been used in movies such as Caligula and TV shows like The Simpsons and the British reality series, The Apprentice. This piece, also known as “Montagues and Capulets”, conjures a mood of foreboding musically expressed through the strings playing pianissimo or softly, contrasted by the woodwinds and horns blowing fortissimo. Prokofiev has a very strong visual sense which served him well in composing music for ballet -- shortly after creating Romeo and Juliet’s sonic score he joined with that other Sergei (Eisenstein) to compose the score for the 1938 epic, Alexander Nevsky. The composer and director closely collaborated on this movie, with Prokofiev composing notes to accompany Eisenstein’s frames of film.

Speaking of which, the National Ballet of Canada production, overseen by artistic director Karen Kain, uses cinematic sleight of hand. Not only in the rapid scene changes but in what is a clever use of split screen, which, minus Shakespeare’s dialogue, is intended to explain how Friar Lawrence’s (Peter Ottmann alternates in this role with Kevin Bowles) potions will affect Juliet. Alas  poor sweet Juliet and her beloved Romeo experience what is probably the stage’s biggest mix up, and their poor timing results in… But you know how the rest of it goes, don’t you dear reader?

I have one minor complaint: the famous balcony scene actually does not feature a balcony per se, but merely Juliet at her window, as the two say sweet nothings to one another. At least Tony and Maria got a fire escape in West Side Story! But this is a mere quibble that should not deter viewers from strapping on their ballet shoes and dancing down to the Music Center while they still can to experience what is otherwise a superb, effervescent production of the Bard’s classic (by way of Prokofiev) with its eternal message: Make love, not war.

Romeo and Juliet runs through tomorrow at LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 2130-72-8001; www.laopera.com.

THEATER REVIEW: LEAR

A scene from Lear.

A female gaze

By Ed Rampell

Hark! To paraphrase Juliet: “What light through yonder canyon breaks?” Why, it’s none other than the launching of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s season at its Topanga Canyon outpost, which rather gloriously kicked off June 7 with a production of Lear, heralding the approach of summer with a quintet of Shakespearean productions to honor the Bard’s 450^thbirthday.

The Stratford-upon-Avon playwright’s masterpiece has been oft-produced on stage and screen. Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer has adapted what may well be the most original version of Lear since  -- if not the First Folio -- since Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film co-starring Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald as Cordelia. What makes the Theatricum’s Lear so offbeat is its gender role reversals. Here, the monarch is portrayed by a woman, with Geer herself in the title role, and Lear’s daughters all played by males: Theatricum veterans Aaron Hendry as Goneril and Christopher W. Jones as Regan, and relative newcomer Dane Oliver as a fresh-faced, sweet if tongue-tied Cordelia.

The  gender reassignment of some of the dramatic personae flows smoothly and in the case of Her Majesty, Britain (where Shakespeare’s tragedy takes place) has had female rulers such as Queen Victoria and both Elizabeths who reigned for long periods, including Buckingham Palace’s current occupant.

On the other hand, that Shakespearean shapeshifter, Ms. Mellora Marshall, once again plays a male character as a man. Last summer, the protean Marshall portrayed the bearded title character in Theatricum’s Merlin, Harbinger of Peace. As Eden (whom Shakespeare called Edgar), Geer also switches gears, as in much of the second act her character masquerades as a male beggar, a disguise necessitated by the treachery of Eden’s half-sister Igraine (Abby Craden plays the character Shakespeare called Edmond), who cravenly tricks their father, the Earl of Gloucester (Alan Blumenfeld), into believing that Eden is plotting against him.

Lear’s characters arguably commit Western theater’s biggest, most tragic mistakes since Oedipus plucked his eyes out at ancient Greek amphitheaters. Lear’s vanity, puffed up and inflated over the course of a lifetime of being susceptible to flattery as the monarch, leads to a colossal error when it comes to her offspring. Gloucester betrays a similar lapse in judgment. If power corrupts, absolute power corrupts the ego absolutely -- especially of an absolute monarch. It was Shakespeare’s existential genius to make his characters only able to think logically after going mad (paging R.D. Laing!) or able to see clearly after losing one’s eyesight (in what may be the Bard’s reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King).

The white-haired Geer’s energetic acting is extraordinary, full of vitality that belies and defies her years. To paraphrase the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: “There’s no white hair in her soul.” Since your scribbler doesn’t get paid by the word, there’s only room to mention a few standouts in this cast of about 35 thespians. Like with Geer's performance, this reviewer has never seen Abby Craden do better whilst trodding the boards. Similar to her spell casting, creepy Morgana in last year’s Merlin, Craden’s spiteful, born-out-of-wedlock Igraine is a conniving, cunning schemer, determined to rise on the social totem pole by any means necessary. Romping about the bare stage apparently braless in Topanga, Craden’s character is one of those people who exploit their sexuality in order to attain self-seeking wishes, as she woos both of Lear’s married sons. Craden’s Igraine is sure to give you a migraine. As she says: "Now, gods, stand up for bastards!" indeed.

As the Earl of Gloucester, Blumenfeld is moving as a man who has been blinded -- literally. Geer is largely relegated to the background in Act I but splendidly comes alive in the second act, with scenes her Eden dominates. Depicting Lear’s Fool, Marshall, as usual, delivers the goods with another uncanny cross-dressing performance in what is a pivotal role, since during Europe’s medieval epoch court jesters were the only subjects allowed to publicly voice critiques of the crown and court. And if ever a crowned head needed a sound tongue lashing (albeit one with its barbs laced with and sugarcoated in humor), it is Lear, whose mistakes of epic proportion in judging character wreak havoc.

Ellen Geer’s and Marshall’s co-direction is likewise inspired, making full use of the Theatricum amphitheater’s space amidst Topanga Canyon’s sylvan glade. Lear’s madness scene on a rooftop is stunningly staged (although it had this fan fearing for Geer’s life!) and there is plenty of swordplay onstage and gamboling through the woods, as is this outdoor troupe’s hallmark. Val Miller’s period costuming enhances the ambiance, and it’s interesting to note that this production does not list a set designer per se in the credits. The sparse stage suggests Jerzy Grotowski’s “poor theater” -- but what the boards “lack” are more than made up for through a vivid use of the hilly woods, unified as an organic part of the action.

As this reviewer noted recently in his coverage of The Gondoliers at Sierra Madre Playhouse, it’s fascinating how ideas percolate up out of the primordial ooze of the collective unconscious. Works written centuries ago can take on new meanings and have enhanced relevancy when put into a modern context, striking contemporary chords. Currently, the “republican Monarchy” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1889 operetta can refer to today’s income inequality and wealth gap.

Similarly, the intercepting of messages, which plays a key role in Lear -- believed to have opened with Richard Burbage circa 1606 -- has an updated relevance for 21^stcentury auds. Although Lear’s intercepted messages are presumably written on parchment with a quill dipped in ink, and not emails, phone calls, etc., in our time one can relate this plot device to the phone hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch’s media minions in the UK (even the royals’ phones were allegedly hacked), and to the whole brouhaha surrounding WikiLeaks and l’affaire Edward Snowden, with their releases of classified information. Indeed, the online publication that Glenn Greenwald and his First Look Media partners in thought crime have created is called The Intercept.

In addition to being William Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday, 2014 is being billed as the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s 40^th anniversary. Judging by the first play of its season celebrating the Bard, my favorite L.A. theater company proves, once again, that where there’s a will -- or two Wills -- there’s a way.

Lear runs through Oct. 4 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: 310-455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

                                                  

THEATER REVIEW: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Puck (Will Hickman) in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Puck yes

By Ed Rampell

 

What is even the point of writing a review about such inspired madcap mystical mirthfulness? Honestly Dear Reader, you should save your reviewer the effort and simply just go see the concoction and confection that is the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Geers’ effervescent version of the Bard’s dream-like yarn is such rip-roaring good fun that it should suffice to say, that if you love yourself and believe you deserve to have a good time, get thee to a Topanga amphitheater.

 

Yet review it I shall -- once more into the literary breaches, lads and lasses! Where shall I begin in describing this surreal romantic romp written with quill and ink way back when Amazons were female warriors and not online book retailers, and pixies not pixels reigned? William Shakespeare’s frothy supernatural tale with its plot about lovers blithely switching partners the way most people change their socks inspired Woody Allen’s 1982 A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy.

 

Costumer Katherine Crawford’s regalia -- especially of the motley crew of faeries -- is the best pixie-ish apparel this side of Tinkerbell. As usual, the troupe’s organized mayhem of mise-en-scene, co-directed by Willow Geer and her auntie, Mellora Marshall, takes full advantage of the surrounding woods and hills, literally putting the Botanicum into the Theatricum. But in this production the WGTB outdoes itself, offering something I haven’t seen before on this stage amidst the sylvan glade: Puck (played by the athletic Will Hickman) swings above the boards, Tarzan-like, on a tree-attached rope -- not a vine, although the theatrical effect remains divine.

 

Although methinks A Midsummer Night’s Dream is age appropriate for children of all ages, the opening is quite sensuous with sinewy, sexy Sydney Mason as Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, adorned by war paint in a revealing outfit, embracing Theseus, duke of Athens (the lucky J.B. Waterman; Valeka Holt generally plays Hippolyta). Leaping leopards -- a sort of leopard skin-garbed, war whooping Tanya Edwards is a standout in the ensemble of Amazons.

 

The shape shifting Mellora Marshall, who sheds genders the way we mere mortals change garments, surpasses herself here, playing a character who isn’t even human. The grand Marshall is neither a man nor a woman -- portraying Titania, she is Oberon’s fairy queen. As Helena, Marshall’s co-helmer, Willow Geer, is confronted by a creative challenge: Somehow this young woman who is, offstage, a radiant redheaded beauty, must somehow convince audiences she is a plain Jane. That through her dramatic sleight-of-hand Willow manages to do so is proof that she’s one of L.A. finest stage actresses.

 

And now we come to the bottom of Will’s bill, with Katherine Griffith’s hilarious cross-gender turn as the male, mustachioed, bellowing Bottom. Shakespeare, of course, slyly comments on the art of acting and those who do it in Hamlet, wherein “the play’s the thing.” The Bard also does so in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Bottom is part of an itinerant troupe of actors (or something or other) who perform a play-within-the-play about the Roman mythological characters Pyramus and Thisbe (Ovid tells their tale in his Metamorphoses) to celebrate the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta and company. Griffith’s Bottom is a bottomless pit of ego magically transformed by some stage effects into Shakespeare’s notion of what the playwright thought of hammy actors.

 

To be sure, the Botanicum Theatricum, as usual, does the Bard proud. Nevertheless, the most magical thing about A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s vision and his deathless dialogue. Go Puck yourselves and allow the enchanting, irreverent revels of this tidbit of Topanga tomfoolery cast a spell on you.

 

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is runs through Sept. 28 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For more information: 310-455-3723; www.Theatricum.com.

 

THEATER REVIEW: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

A scene from The Taming of the Shrew.

For the birds

By Ed Rampell

“Hark! What light breaks through yonder canyon?” Why, it’s none other than another repertory season of revels and revelations at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, made glorious summer by these sons and daughters of Geers.

As I’ve written for years, no summer in Los Angeles is complete without a stage sojourn to the Theatricum and this remains true as ever for 2013’s theatergoers. There’s nothing quite like seeing Shakespeare under the stars in that rustic amphitheatre nestled in Topanga Canyon. Never ones to shrink from controversy, the Theatricum has launched its 40^th Anniversary Repertory Season with one of the Bard’s most contentious plays: The Taming of the Shrew.

Let me say from the outset that the mise-en-scene, which creatively makes use of the natural surroundings, the music, the period costumes (I’m always up for traveling back in time to the Renaissance) and the acting are up this equity house’s usual high standards. As Grumio the sly cross-dressing Melora Marshall humorously plays yet another male character. Raven-haired Willow Geer -- who has trod the boards in many a Bard play and is arguably one of Los Angeles’ finest theater actresses -- is superb as the fiery, strong-willed (and did I forget to say sexy?) Katharina. Willow can heave her bosom with the best of them, and coming up against this force of nature is another Theatricum veteran, Aaron Hendry, as Petruchio, who seeks to woo, wed and domesticate this fireball.

The troupe’s venerable Artistic Director, Ellen Geer, presides over the organized mayhem of this naughty, bawdy, rowdy farce with her usual astute aplomb. In the playbill’s “Director’s Notes” Ms. Geer -- a Shakespearean expert -- observes that there are “many points of view” about The Taming of the Shrew, which is indeed subject to interpretation. One point of view is that in this play about the eternal war between the sexes where Petruchio subdues and subjugates Katharina to his will. Backstage, after the show, Hendry told this critic that Petruchio could be considered to be a “misogynist."

In the story Katharina, the “shrew-ish” title character, is an acid-tongued, temperamental woman used to having and getting her way in Padua. Or, she is a proto-feminist, free spirited and determined to live life on her own terms. However, she is coerced against what appears to be her will to enter into an arranged marriage on very short notice with Petruchio. He is no gentleman from Verona, and after marrying Kate, literally uses Guantanamo-type (I kid thee not) “enhanced interrogation” methods to break her spirit, including sleep and food deprivation.

The reader may feel that, to paraphrase Queen Gertrude: “The critic doth protest too much, methinks.” To be fair to the production, Hendry does succeed in conveying a sense that Petruchio is genuinely smitten with Katharina. And when they lip lock one can sense that both characters feel a libidinal thrill.

However, at one point Kate shrieks at the top of her lungs that she wants to be “free!!!”

Here, here -- hear, hear the voice of women throughout the ages struggling for their rights, to be treated as equals, not chattel!

To be sure, the Theatricum’s version is a romp, but many of the jokes may stick in your craw. The subjugation of human beings is never a laughing matter to be taken lightly -- although there are those who argue that Kate bests her loutish husband by using submissiveness as a ruse to -- as ever -- get her own way. But what would we say if Shakespeare had titled The Merchant of Venice “The Taming of the Jew”? Some of this tale of domination is frankly disturbing to my egalitarian, anarchistic sensibility. But as far as the Theatricum’s production goes, to paraphrase Cassius:

“The fault, dear Bard,
Is not in the staging
But in our text.”

The Taming of the Shrew runs through Sept. 29 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For more information: 310-455-3723; www.Theatricum.com.

 

 

THEATER REVIEW: MACBETH

Macbeth (Bo Foxworth) in Macbeth.

Spot on

By Ed Rampell

True confession: Until I attended the Antaeus Company’s luminous production of MacBeth, I had never actually read or seen a stage or screen adaptation of the Scottish play, as it is called. Sure, when I was a lad I attended MacBird!, the 1967 satire that combined elements of MacBeth with the JFK assassination. And I was familiar enough with Shakespeare’s immortal lines to know that “Out, out damn spot!” was not Dick and Jane chasing a dog away from their home.

The good news is that Antaeus’ rendering of the Bard’s tragedy about power mad social climbers made MacBeth well worth the wait for me. The ensemble’s admirable acting, which ranges from the psychopathological to the vaudevillean, is adeptly directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Antaeus has a full double cast -- the “Kinsmen” and the “Thanes” -- of around 20 players each tackling the production on alternate nights. At the premiere the Kinsmen performed, with Bo Foxworth and a not so noble Ann Noble portraying the murderous schemers who would be king and queen of Scotland.

The Antaeus version opens not with the trio of witches, but with a bit of poetic license, adding an entire scene that’s only suggested by the drama’s actual dialogue. In it, MacBeth (Foxworth) and Lady MacBeth (Noble) lament the death of their infant. The loss drives the couple to the brink and actually supplies an explanation for their subsequent power grabbing behavior. Unable to control the course of the natural world (childbirth), in a bizarre form of compensation, the MacBeths seek to seize state power and run the government so they will have some sense of control over a capricious world.

This prelude enhances insight into the lead characters’ motivations and enriches the play’s innately psychological text and texture. With her sheer will to power, come hell or high water, Noble is chilling as she pushes her husband to perform heinous deeds in order to attain then maintain the throne. Along with Hamlet,that other tragedy about those who wear the crown uneasily upon their troubled heads, MacBeth is arguably Shakespeare’s most psychological play.

Indeed, MacBeth says to the Doctor (Steve Hofvendahl) about his sleepless, guilt wracked wife: "Cure her of that." Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?” Well, what is this if not a prescription for creating psychoanalysis, some 250-plus years before Freud?

But as the personal is also the political, Shakespeare elevates his drama beyond the realm of the mind and into statecraft. Although it’s rarely, if ever remarked upon, a recurring Shakespearean theme is the toppling of bad rulers by a more righteous wing of the elite, which seeks to set things right. This faction fighting leitmotif runs through many of the Bard’s epics, including: Hamlet, Richard III, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar and MacBeth.

There are too many good actors to cite but allow me to single out Peter Van Norden as a droll Seyton (he also doubles as Duncan), Joe Holt as Banquo and James Sutorius as MacDuff. Foxworth plays MacBeth as if he has a a Napoleonic complex, seeking to make up through swordplay, murder and mayhem what he lacks in stature. Returning to Noble as Lady MacBeth, she is the ultimate henpecker, ever prodding her beleaguered husband on. She’s more terrifying than Scotland’s other infamous horror, the Loch Ness Monster. Noble is positively harrowing with her crimson locks and reddish period outfit, all redolent of her blood obsessed psyche costumed by Jessica Olson, who effectively garbs the rest of the cast in kilts, gowns and armor. (But where was that bagpipes player to complete the scene?)

Scenic Designer Tom Buderwitz, who brilliantly crafted a faithful replica of a British pub in the same playhouse where Antaeus presented Noël Coward’s WWII era Peace in Our Time, has worked his magic againon the diminutive stage, with sets that conjure up castles and misty Scottish moors.

Of course, the real star of this production remains Shakespeare, that inventor of proto-psychoanalysis. As Humanism swept Europe the Bard’s ultimate gift was to dramatize the “double toil and trouble” of the cauldron of the mind. Had he put quill to parchment and wrote the phone book, every time one looked a number up he or she would laugh or weep. Antaeus’ hair raising production does the playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon proud.

MacBeth runs through Aug. 26 at the The Antaeus Company, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: 818/506-1983; www.Antaeus.org.