Macbeth’s outdoor set adds atmosphere

By Mark Dreisonstok

Summer evenings are the perfect time to watch a Shakespeare play outdoors. This month, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company — in particular, its Black Classical Acting Ensemble — presents an outstanding outdoor version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth , directed superbly by Lauren Davis. The ensemble was established in 2021 “for Black artists to find and nurture their authentic voices in classical drama.”

The stage is set at a historic park amid the ruins of a boarding school built in 1837, the Patapsco Female Institute. This picturesque setting, overlooking historic Ellicott City, adds to the ambience of the production, particularly as the old architecture takes on the appearance of medieval castle walls as night falls.

Many readers may recall the plot of “the Scottish play.” First, the nobleman Macbeth and his friend Banquo meet three witches — the Weird Sisters — who seem to reveal the men’s fates and encourage them to aim for high offices.

Macbeth’s wife further fuels his ambition to be king and fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In short, they conspire to kill the current king and take his crown. Yet, as Shakespeare reminds us in this tragedy, “vaulting ambition…o’erleaps itself.”

Even if they succeed, will Macbeth and Lady Macbeth be able to allay their consciences, or will the bloody deed of several murders cause visions of ghosts and restless sleepwalking in the night?

Effective acting

The cast is excellent in bringing this Elizabethan play to life, particularly DeJeanette Horne as Macbeth. He effectively enacts the many contradictory aspects of Macbeth’s personality, which the character reveals throughout Shakespeare’s text: courage, self-doubt, fear, remorse, cruelty, defiance and — of course — ambition.

While ambition is sometimes looked upon askance, especially in religious traditions, in modern U.S. society it is considered a positive attribute. Macbeth is a highly relevant play precisely because, from a vantage point of hundreds of years ago, Shakespeare wrestles with the morality of ambition in a way that we still do today.

After a recent performance, Horne said that the scene he most enjoys is the mo- ment when Banquo’s ghost appears to a guilt-ridden Macbeth, for this gives an actor a chance “to really cut loose.”

In that scene, Horne engages with audience members, who for that moment serve as banquet guests. He also adds moments of humor, which work to great effect.

Horne is well-matched by an outstanding Dawn Thomas Reidy playing Lady Macbeth, especially in the famous sleepwalking scene.

Gregory Burgess is regal and engaging as the doomed King Duncan, who will be felled by Macbeth.

Lloyd Ekpe has a particularly fine moment as Macbeth’s chief antagonist, Macduff, particularly in the scene in which he displays his grief at the Macbethordered murder of his wife and son (“All my pretty ones?” he