`Macbeth' In The Buff: Nudity For No Purpose

Theater Review "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. Directed by Tony Soper. Fool's Cathedral, Ionic Room at the Masonic Temple, 801 E. Pine St., Seattle. Thursdays-Sundays through Nov. 30. 206-723-5460.

Nudity can be bad for your concentration.

You're chatting to a stranger. Suddenly, he takes off every stitch, and carries on talking. You are now thinking either "Huh?" or "Hmm!" Either way, you're no longer concentrating on the topic at hand.

This problem looms large in Tony Soper's new production of "Macbeth" - or perhaps that should be "Macbuff" - for Fool's Cathedral. There's more gratuitous nudity in it than in a month of late-'60s rock musicals.

"Gratuitous nudity" sounds like a moralist's complaint, but morals have nothing to do with it. It's in dramatic terms that the nudity is gratuitous. It gets in the way of the play - which, when left to its own devices, is a great yarn about murder and madness.

Some of the acting isn't bad, notably Todd Jamieson's turn as the Thane himself. He's a manly, anguished presence, and he looks right with his big physique, red hair and puzzled eyes. Craig English is good as Banquo. And Kevin Haggerty does a regal Duncan, though he then fails to make any kind of sense as the retainer Seyton, playing him as a catatonic shaman in (and out of) a loincloth.

Soper is obviously trying to make this production capture the contrast between Shakespeare's ageless commentary on power-lust and

the ancient, barbarous Scots setting. So there are ragged kilts, greasy manes and plenty of saliva. (You thought those guys in "Braveheart" were uncouth - hah!)

In such a context, having the witches show up nude makes a degree of sense. Even here, though, there's a note of unreality about the exercise. Banquo's line about "withered hags" is merely comic when its objects are three wrinkle-free twentysomething actresses.

Lady Macbeth (Jerri Lee Young) also bares all, for no apparent reason. Her disrobing is especially incongruous because it first occurs with the speech ". . . unsex me here . . ." And from that point on, the production is breasts and testicles all the way. In the audience, you feel positively overdressed. The actors manage the nudity with some dignity, which is all the more amazing when it's so clear that they have no idea what purpose it serves.

One of the few main actors to stay clothed is Laurel Anne White, who as the vengeful Macduff shows more manly spirit and more acting ability than most of the men. She doesn't do a whole lot with either her face or her limbs, but it's just this capacity for stillness that gives her some vehemence and power. Elsewhere there's too much "strutting and fretting," to quote the play itself.

The play is still riveting. Lady Macbeth wonders why her husband is "afeard" to do in fact what he has imagined and desired. She doesn't see, and Macbeth is tormented because he half-sees, that respecting the distinction between what we desire to do and what we are prepared to do is what moral principles are all about. Macduff sees it very well, but, since his wife and children have been murdered, we can't really blame him for hacking Macbeth's head off.