FreakishNerd
Voices Found Repertory presents a brief, brutal production of Macbeth in the Underground Collaborative this month. Director Alec Lachman manages a tight edit of the original tragedy that weighs-in at roughly 90 minutes with a brief intermission. The overall design of the show has shades of the apocalyptic with set and costuming suggesting something awful and overwhelming came and went through the world long before Macbeth’s fateful meeting with the three witches. Lachman assembles a production that gives the feel of perpetual strife. Armor is constructed out of repurposed road signs. The set is punctuated by ragged caution tape. Slogans from the script are spray painted graffiti on the walls amidst chain link, detritus and a derelict stop sign.
Michael Cienfugos-Baca strides onto the set with a wooden shield that looks like riot gear. He’s playing Macbeth, but he also designed the set. He’s a restless hulking figure onstage amidst the scratching and scrambling power struggles the dart around onstage. Alexis Furseth is a tough and steady Lady Macbeth with enough gravity to anchor the doomed anti-hero into his horrible destiny. The two of them rest at the center of a ragged ensemble amidst the moody synth scoring and sound design of The Twilight (Andrew Wagner.) In the short edit of the script, the action takes little time in getting intense. Blood is spat into the dusty shadows. Broadswords are heaved around. With 90 minutes in a littered corner of a set, there’s no time for pretty royalty. There is only the tragedy of another explosion of aggression.
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Through March 31 at The Arcade Theatre in the Underground Collaborative, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, visit www.voicesfoundrep.com.
