The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0190 Monday, 12 March 2007
From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Monday, March 12, 2007
Subject: Alaskan Macbeth
From: The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031101554.html
'Macbeth,' North by Northwest
By Nelson Pressley
Special To The Washington Post
Monday, March 12, 2007; C01
The Southeastern Alaskan language Tlingit -- pronounced "klinkit" --
isn't especially full of sound and fury in the "Macbeth" of Juneau's
Perseverance Theatre. But that's because in this production, which has
been carefully imbued with Tlingit symmetry and ceremony by director
Anita Maynard-Losh, the most bloody-minded speeches are rendered in English.
A political indictment of murderous ambition as a white man's game?
That's seems like a reasonable conclusion as Jake Waid's Macbeth
smoothly speaks Tlingit to his brethren, then turns to the audience and
confides in English, "Stars, hide your fires; let not night light see my
black and deep desires."
Yet it's not overt politics so much as two-faced secrecy that seems to
be the issue in this faintly studious show, which fits beautifully
inside the round Rasmuson Theater at the Smithsonian's National Museum
of the American Indian. (Pinpoint starlight even glows from the ceiling
that undulates over the audience.) Shiftiness is hard-wired to this
easy-to-follow bilingual format. Keep an eye on the convenient English
surtitles of Johnny Marks's Tlingit translation for most of the cast,
then get the straight hard plots and paranoia in English from the
scheming couple.
It's nicely conceived but not very powerful. Shakespeare's play
overflows with emotional turbulence, but the acting is seldom intriguing
or complicated. Some of this is indeed a matter of translation, since
many (if not all) of the actors apparently had to learn Tlingit for this
show.
[ . . . ]
Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Translated into Tlingit by Johnny
Marks. Conceived and directed by Anita Maynard-Losh. Costumes, Nikki
Morris; lighting design, Tobin D. Clark; sound design, Albert McDonnell.
With Ishmael Hope, Richard Atoruk/Qaggun, Lance Twitchell, George Holly,
Lily Hudson, Austin Tagaban and Sakara "Sky" Dunlap. Approximately 2
hours 15 minutes. Through March 18 at the National Museum of the
American Indian, Fourth Street and Independence Avenue SW. Call
202-357-3030 or visit http://www.ResidentAssociates.org
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