Theater Review—

With SOS’s ‘Macbeth,’ Birnam Wood

Has Arrived In Fairfield County

By Julie Stern

ROWAYTON — For those who like their summer outdoor theater-picnic experience but crave more solid intellectual sustenance, Rowayton’s Shakespeare on the Sound serves up an ambitious offering of traditional Shakespeare, performed by Equity players, against the backdrop of the sun setting on Five Mile River.

During the year this is an outreach program that brings actors into area middle schools in order both to give students their first experience with Shakespeare, and also to help them draw connections between the insights of four centuries ago, and issues which are relevant to today’s world: power, loyalty, cruelty, feminism, greed, honor...

Each year the program culminates with a 16-performance festival in Pinkney Park, festooned with colorful banners and complete with live music, costumes, and eerie sound effects.

This season’s production is Macbeth or, “the Scottish play” that tells the story of a soldier-nobleman, beloved by his king, who is corrupted by the tempting prophecies of three witches whom he encounters on a deserted heath.

These three “weird sisters” suggest that he will not only be “Thane of Glamis” (a title which he already holds) but also Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland.

When Duncan, the King, rewards Macbeth for his battlefield heroism by making him the new Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth becomes obsessed with the idea that the witches’ prediction was correct and that he will eventually become king himself. From there it is a short leap of the imagination to consider taking steps to make this happen.

Most people over the age of 12 have either seen the play before, or read it in school, or even acted in it, but it is always a pleasure to experience it again, live, to hear so many famous and familiar lines – including “double, double, toil and trouble,” “out, damned spot,” “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing...” – and to see the impossible happen, as Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.

The best thing about this particular production is the performance of the witches, who have a lot to say, and one of whom doubles in a hilarious comic relief bit as the porter at the gate.

But the whole thing is definitely a class act, and a most enjoyable way to spend a hot summer evening. Good for Rowayton!

(Pinkney Park opens at 4 pm, and performances begin at 7:30. The bad news is, Macbeth continues only until July 2. The good news is, performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday, July 2, at 2 pm.

Visit ShakespeareOnTheSound.org for admission, seating and other details.)