Margin Notes: Make Thick My Blood

 Make Thick My Blood

Stephan Wolfert and Dawn Stern. Photo by Ashley Garrett.

Seen on: Friday, 8/05/22.
My grade: B

Plot and Background

A two-person, 55-minute deconstruction of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, presented by DE-CRUIT, a veteran-founded theater company dedicated to "treating trauma through Shakespeare." Macbeth tells the story of a nobleman just back from battle who hears a prophecy that he will be king and, with the collaboration of his wife, plots first to make that prophecy a reality, and then to remove any obstacles to keeping his stolen crown. Husband and wife are both ultimately destroyed by guilt over their actions and (in the source play) by the enemies they have created along the way.

What I Knew Beforehand

I knew that it would be a very physical production, exploring trauma within the trappings of Macbeth, a play I'm pretty familiar with.

Thoughts:

Play: I regret that this review is coming out too late to actually help bring a wider audience to the production, but I am grateful I was able to see it before the run ended. Overall I would call this a mixed success. Stephan Wolfert and Dawn Stern, the DE-CRUIT founders who are both creators and performers of this piece, bring a cogent understanding of the source text as well as a clear idea of how they want to extrapolate it to explore different kinds of trauma and trauma responses. While Macbeth is shaken first from battle atrocities and then the murders he himself commits, Lady Macbeth is haunted more by the loss of their infant child, though her complicity in Duncan's death does also contribute to her ultimate unraveling. The performance opens with a movement piece that establishes both characters' trauma motifs--he gasping at some horrific sight and sinking as she holds him, then crawling across the floor; she heaving and panting until finally the stillborn birth is taken from her--before shifting into text. The script focuses chiefly on dialogs between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth or between Macbeth and Banquo (Stern playing both Lady M and Banquo), with dialog from other scenes and characters sometimes reassigned to the married couple to keep to the plot beats. Most compelling within this structure are the witches' prophecy, which here manifest in both actors' seemingly taken possession of to recite, as they move in jerky unison; and the sleeping sequence when Macbeth and his Lady attempt to defy another prophecy--that Macbeth shall sleep no more--by dreaming, and their dreams are built of their trauma cycles, relentless and torturing. Less successful perhaps is the macro story clarity for anyone not as familiar with the source text. My friend who attended with me knew the overall sense of the play but not the play-by-play of it, and had trouble following a number of sequences (especially Macbeth's recitation of the slaughter of Macduff's family, as this was the performance's first mention of Macduff at all). This failing, for me, boils down to a larger issue I've talked about before, when deconstruction or deliteralization is taken to such a degree that it obstructs story, especially for any observers not as steeped in the original text (recent examples include the revivals of Cyrano, Oklahoma!, and Assassins). I'm of the mindset that while having extratextual knowledge (or in this case, just knowing a non-deconstructed version of the thing) can add resonance to the observer,  the piece should still stand on its own for an audience member coming to the work fresh.

Cast: Stephan Wolfert and Dawn Stern both demonstrate an ease with the text that makes the audience (or at least me) forget we are listening to heightened language. They each have striking and expressive faces and bring a matching sense of urgency and immediacy to every moment. Stern seems more comfortable with choreographed movement than Wolfert and she truly shines in those moments that call for physical precision. Even the set of her features change when she is possessed by the witches' prophecy. At times during the opening movement piece it feels as if the performers are not quite following each gesture to its full potential, falling short of the possible magnitude of the moment, but I ascribe some of that to my suspicion that they did not have much time to practice in the actual performance space, and so are not fully confident with the dimension and scope of their physical frame.

Design: How can I sufficiently sing the praises of this design team? Brittany Vasta's scenic frame: a drooping canopy of camouflage netting, hiding both players in a foxhole. The netting looks innocuous and safe at first glance, a dusty burlap brown, but when Dawn Chiang's lighting hits at just the right color and angle, suddenly we are surrounded by viscera, in the belly of some monstrous beast. And speaking of viscera, Macbeth's cape, designed by Raven Ong and worn over Macbeth's leather vest and forearm bands, is bedecked with shining red splotches that could be ornamental, could be gore acquired in the heat of battle, could be aching wounds exposed across his shoulders. Chiang's lighting is versatile throughout, shading or illuminating the actors, exposing their weaknesses, searching for them as they hide, leading them on their path of destruction. I only have one overall complaint, and that's more on the confines of the space: the audience seats are on risers but at a very subtle rake, and insufficient to allow good sightlines for the amount of floor work in this production. In a different space, with a different audience configuration, this would be a non-issue, and it's one I again ascribe to not having sufficient time in the performance space to adjust.

***

Running: Recently played at Studio Theatre at Theatre Row (DE-CRUIT) - Opening: July 29, 2022. Closing: August 6, 2022.
Category: play
Length: 55 minutes, no intermission.

Creative Team

Playwright: Stephan Wolfert and Dawn Stern
Director and Choreography: Alexandera Beller Assistant Director/Choreographer: Myah Shein
Designers: Brittany Vasta (Set), Raven Ong (Costume), Dawn Chiang (Lighting), Alexandra Beller (Sound).
Cast: Stephan Wolfert and Dawn Stern.

Dawn Stern. Photo by Ashley Garrett.