Seeley Lake Resonates with Shakespeare's "Macbeth"

SEELEY LAKE – Chuckles rippled through the audience gathered on lawn chairs and blankets at the Double Arrow Lodge grounds when the three witches from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" spoke of scattering into "the fog and filthy air." Yet not even the "filthy air" emanating from the Rice Ridge Fire kept an estimated crowd of nearly 150 from venturing out to see Montana Shakespeare in the Parks' (MSIP) production of "Macbeth" Thursday, Aug. 24 on the Double Arrow Lodge grounds.

That the play would not be a traditional production with the cast in Elizabethan garb became evident immediately as the waiting audience stared at the stage backdrop depicting the World War II poster commonly (though incorrectly) identified with Rosie the Riveter. The poster shows a woman wearing a blue factory uniform with a red polka-dot bandana tied around her head. She flexes her bicep and the wording above her reads "We Can Do It!"

The poster has come to memorialize women's entry into the workforce when the male factory workers were called to fight the war. In the early 1980s, the poster became associated with the feminism movement. In the context of the MSIP production, it reinforced the formidable personality of Lady Macbeth who convinces her husband to murder the King of Scotland so that he can become king instead.

If the audience saw the poster as a premonition that Shakespeare's play would be re-envisioned in World War II period costume, they perhaps were surprised to see the initial actors attired in a style more expressive of the movie "Braveheart." Yet subsequent scenes showed soldier characters shouldering frame backpacks and bedrolls from the 1950s. One backpack bore a metal sign, the red-bordered yellow triangle symbol for warning. Another pack had a scuffed and bent, but modern, Minnesota license plate attached to it.

In some ways, the mishmash of time periods, deliberately contrived by MSIP Costume Designer Denise Massman, Scenic Designer Tom Watson and Director Kevin Asselin followed the lead of Shakespeare himself. Invoking a good deal of poetic license, the playwright recounted the 11th century succession to the Scottish throne. That the story was spoken in the language of early 17th century Englishmen and enacted before a 21st century audience only added to the time jumble. Yet it is Shakespeare's genius that his words and his tale of uncontrolled ambition and its consequences resonate for audiences of all eras.

Also a tribute to Shakespeare's genius is his ability to accommodate many nuances of interpretation by many actors, directors and literary critics throughout the ages.

Audience members who read the program's Dramaturgical Notes by Gretchen Minton, were invited to ponder the parallelism between Macbeth's transformation into a tyrannical leader as he rises to power and the ensuing upheaval and destruction of the natural environment. Seeley Lake residents could sympathize when they heard the Old Man character declare how in all his 70 years he had never witnessed such strange signs as nature lately put forth.

Resident victims of too many hazardous, smoke-filled days could readily empathize when the old man's companion said, "...by the clock, 'tis day, And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp. Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, that darkness does the face of earth entomb, when living light should kiss it?" (Act II, Scene IV)

Asselin, in the program's Director's Notes, offered another theme to ponder. In his opinion, the missing component in most productions of the play is the very real love and affection initially shared by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. That affection was well portrayed by actors Nate Cheeseman and Aila Peck in the MSIP production. Part of the tragedy for Asselin is that the ambitious couple's drive for more power and prestige tears them apart, eventually driving Lady Macbeth insane and driving Macbeth himself to commission more and more murders.

In the end the Macbeths have lost themselves and each other and can no longer find meaning in life. As Macbeth so aptly states: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Act V, Scene V).

Yet even consumed by hopelessness, Macbeth continues fighting – and killing – to solidify his power. He believes himself invulnerable, trusting in the prophecies of the three witches that he cannot be harmed by anyone born of a woman and that his castle will be safe until it be assailed by "great Birnam wood."

Though the Rice Ridge Fire consumed trees by the acre just a mile from the play, Seeley Lake still had enough green trees left to enable each of Malcolm's soldiers to "break off a branch and hold it in front of him." Macbeth, mistaking Seeley Lake boughs for Birnam woods, was finally defeated.

Each year a new MSIP production is brought to Seeley Lake through the efforts of Alpine Artisans' 2 Valleys Stage and marks the beginning of the new concert season.