Shakespeare in Performance: Macbeth.

In Shakespeare in Performance: Macbeth, Bernice Kliman divides theatrical interpretations of Macbeth into four categories. She characterizes the first as those in which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth dominate the play. Often, Lady Macbeth commands the first half of the play and Macbeth the second; Kliman thus refers to this type of performance as "chiasmus." A second type presents the world as controlled by supernatural forces and the characters as pawns. The third type personalizes this corruption so that "the tragedy is more familial and intimate, and minor characters rise above [their] anonymity" (2). The final type portrays Scottish society as hopelessly corrupt and thus the protagonists do not seem unusually brutal. Kliman recognizes that such classifications are incomplete and overlapping, but her categories allow her to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of certain approaches to this oft-produced play.

The Shakespeare in Performance series does not attempt to provide complete production histories; instead, the authors focus on a few famous, well-documented performances on stage, television and screen. Thus, though Kliman begins with a discussion of early productions, she focuses more and is more insightful - on twentieth-century productions. The strongest sections of the book analyze productions from television and film. Kliman's first chapter, and particularly the first several pages, is particularly disappointing, however. Though she purports in the first section to be covering early stage history (1606-23), her arguments are decidedly ahistorical. For example, we are told that Malcolm's discussion of good kingship "seems to be a digression in an already long scene," but is placed there because it allows the audience to return "to right thinking - that is, to social norms" (5). A few pages later, she dispenses with the question of how male actors would have portrayed female characters by writing that "if, however, a Jacobean actor portrayed Lady Macbeth as excessively masculine, her feminine nature could have been called into question; that is, audiences might not have been willing to 'believe' they were seeing a woman. Therefore, I suspect that the Jacobean Lady played by a male appeared feminine" (10-11). Kliman offers no further proof for her suspicion, and in general I found myself asking "how do we know?" too often in the opening pages.

It was thus a relief to come to the more well-argued sections that form the bulk of the book. If at times Kliman sounds more like a reviewer than a critic, she more than makes up for this tonal shift with her research into reviews, prompt books and memoirs. However, Kliman seems most comfortable discussing film, and she has a good eye for detail, when she writes for example that "in the [George Shaefer] film, a tapestry in the Macbeth bedchamber showing Christ holding the orb of the world is an effective reminder that God oversees events in Scotland - though it is doubtful that Macbeth would have chosen this decoration over his bed. . . . Obviousness is sometimes a lapse, as when Macbeth stands in a shaft of sun when he says 'I 'gin to be aweary of the sun'" (V.v.49) (59). Kliman is at her most interesting near the end, where she discusses the work of Welles, Nunn and Polanski. The book closes with a brief discussion of two productions staged in 1990: Richard Jordan's and Yukio Ninagawa's.

It seems that this book would have been more successful and enjoyable had it been focused solely on twentieth-century productions. While the historical sections of the book are weak, the discussions of productions since Olivier are quite interesting. I would not recommend this book for someone seeking critical insight into Macbeth, but for actors or directors who would like thoughtful appraisals of key twentieth-century productions of Macbeth, this book would be a suitable starting point.

W. RUSSELL MAYES, JR. Washington, DC