Macbeth

Clocking in at under two hours, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's "Macbeth" is a lean but less-than-mean killing machine.It's less than mean primarily because actor Neal Moran never fully conveys the unbridled homicidal ferocity of Macbeth's ambition. He's more a plodding than a plotting Macbeth.Granted, it's supposed to take some convincing on Lady Macbeth's part to get him to embark on his bloody deeds, and Moran's performance does get stronger after Macbeth is crowned. But in the early going, when Kristin Bennett's determined Lady Macbeth urges him to "screw your courage to the sticking point," he looks at her with the passionless expression of a middle manager stuck in a dull business $H meeting.

Starving and freezing on a garbage dump behind her owner's home, Sophia was only able to walk on her hind legs when she was rescued. Next week, she will star in the Shakespearan play "Macbeth," assuming the role of "Man's Best Friend. " Thanks to the Baltimore Humane Society, homeless dogs and cats will have the opportunity to star in famous productions throughout the year with The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory. The acting company is helping to get these animals adopted, giving them a full-page "actor's bio" in the playbill and providing the Baltimore Humane Society with an information table at each show.

Verdi's "Macbeth" opens Saturday at the Lyric, featuring Baltimore-born bass James Morris and the Baltimore Opera.Here, a Baltimore opera buff's irreverent account of the action, with apologies to Shakespeare and Verdi. Warning: If you don't know how this tragedy comes out, stop reading now.Three groups of witches on a heath appearWith prophecies for Macbeth that he's eager to hear.He'll become Thane of Cawder and then Scotland's king.Banquo will father royalty; that's the news that they bring.

On May 12, 2009, Arthur Wilbur Brown A graveside service will be held on Friday at Franklin Memorial Park in Rocky Mount, VA. Arrangements by the CONNELLY FUNERAL HOME OF ESSEX. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, P.O. Box 18470, Encino, CA 91416 or at www.macbethfund.org.

Editor's note: This excerpt from Shakespeare's play about the misguided nobleman explores Macbeth's pivotal meeting with three witches who can see into the future.Macbeth sat brooding, his thoughts far away. "The Thane of Fife didn't come today.I wonder if he's hatching some plot.My spies will discover what I cannot.Tomorrow I'll meet the witches three, and ask what they can predict for me."The sisters were hidden in a cavern deep;Around the cauldron, they did creep.With their hands so crinkled with time,They stirred a stinking putrid slime.

Evil is at the bloody heart of Shakespeare's great tragedy, "Macbeth," and the central scenic image in the Shakespeare Theatre's production is a heart -- or, more precisely, a tree shaped like a heart with veins and arteries for branches.Is Macbeth -- intriguingly and intensely played by Stacy Keach -- evil at heart? Or, once exposed to evil, does it spread through his veins like a disease?Keach adopts the disease model, showing us a man who, as he and his wife explain in the banquet scene with Banquo's ghost, has long suffered from "a strange infirmity."

It is especially significant that all of the characters -- except the title character -- are represented by puppets in Stuffed Puppet Theatre's fascinating production of "Macbeth!"On the most obvious level, this offers a showcase for a solo tour-de-force performance by puppeteer Neville Tranter. On a deeper level, since Tranter also portrays the power-hungry Scot, it sets up a contrast between human being and puppets -- a contrast that leads to the realization that, in the end, Macbeth has less humanity than the puppets.

With "local Shakespeare," you know in advance there will be a drop-off in talent between the gifted few and the well-intentioned but less-seasoned many.As the current Colonial Players of Annapolis presentation of "Macbeth" reminds us, this is most apparent in ensemble scenes where the poetic flow is compromised by the interplay of such unevenly matched characters and voices.But, if I may mix words and plays, I come not to bury Colonial's "Macbeth" but to praise it.For despite inevitable moments of turbulence in the talent pool, there was some remarkable acting, a lot of sure-handed direction and a succession of intensely drawn, downright spooky dramatic moments.

The Baltimore Opera Company "Macbeth" that was unveiled Saturday evening earns fairly high marks on musical and vocal grounds but can't even manage a "gentleman's C" on the way it looks.This was James Morris' first attempt at the title role, and the Baltimore-born and -bred bass-baritone performed it handsomely indeed. Macbeth is a role that is usually performed by a true baritone, and singers of Morris' voice type usually are heard in the role of Banquo, a role that Morris has performed with great success in the past.

Center Stage's production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" emphasizes the play's violence and bloodshed. Yet even this focus on the visceral never truly grabs you in the gut. The most successful scenes in this loud, and at times crude, production are those involving the witches. In these supernatural interludes, director Tim Vasen's interpretation takes on a vitality and fascination often lacking in the rest of the evening. Admittedly, crudeness, noise and blood aren't bad choices for a play about 11th-century Scottish warriors.

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth will make your heart pound, and not just when Macbeth wields bloody daggers after murdering Duncan, or when Banquo rises, eerily, from the dead. Like other CSC productions, Macbeth is staged at the skeletal ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute, set on an appropriately spooky Ellicott City hilltop.

For the next four nights, the legendary Macbeth, long-deceased high king of Scotland, will stride about Woolly Mammoth Theatre's stage with Homer Simpson and Barack Obama. MacHomer, the 70-minute solo show that Rick Miller, a Canadian actor, has been performing on and off for the past 13 years, is always a delightfully bizarre concoction. Only Miller would bring audiences the Bard's spooky, 11th-century tale of murder and ambition as narrated by more than 50 characters from The Simpsons.

"Double, double toil and trouble;/Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble." The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is presenting Macbeth through Dec. 2 at Howard County Center for the Arts. In the public mind, the three witches have almost become comic characters. Stirring their steaming brew and chanting their imprecations, they are ideal subjects for comedy sketches and magazine cartoons, not to mention informal gags at the kitchen range. But if an audience can immerse itself in the idea that people in Shakespeare's dark, savage Scotland believe seriously in mystic forces that can shape their lives and forecast their destinies, the play will unfold in all its power.

Yesterday, William Shakespeare slipped into Jessup's Patuxent Institution. The Bard made his way through the security gate, then traveled down several long halls of the red-brick, maximum-security prison, before stepping inside the cinderblock walls of a gym that would serve as a temporary Globe Theatre. One of his most notorious characters trudged in behind him: Macbeth. Patuxent inmates and their guests spent yesterday afternoon watching the schemes of the ambitious, murderous Scottish lord -- many for the first time -- as performed by the Ellicott City-based Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.

The State Highway Administration is set to begin an $8.5 million construction project to improve safety and ease congestion for more than 30,000 drivers along Route 32 (Sykesville Road) between Route 26 (Liberty Road) and Macbeth Way/Piney Branch Parkway in Eldersburg. Weather permitting, the half-mile project should be completed by fall next year. As a county priority, the Carroll commissioners contributed $2.4 million to move the project forward. The project includes the installation of a full traffic signal at Route 32 and Macbeth Way to improve safety and help facilitate enhanced access to Route 32 between Macbeth Way and Piney Ridge Parkway.

The sun has set, and an overhanging canopy of trees blots out the stars. The woods are full of ominous sounds. Dark figures emerge from the shadows. It's hard not to shiver; something wicked this way comes. Oh, if only that were the case. If You Go Macbeth runs through July 22 in the meadow outside Evergreen House, 4545 N. Charles St. $15-$25. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. 410-366-8596 or go to baltimoreshakespeare.org.

"Macbeth," one of William Shakespeare's best-known tragedies, will be presented by Westminster High students at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in theschool auditorium.The curtain will go up at the same time for performances on Friday and Saturday evening.A cast of 39 students, directed by drama teacher Mary Lou Grout, will act in this story of free will, predestination and one man's climb to power.Grout, who has been directing productions at the school for 10 years, said she chose the play because of student interest.

"Double, double toil and trouble;/Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble." The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is presenting Macbeth through Dec. 2 at Howard County Center for the Arts. In the public mind, the three witches have almost become comic characters. Stirring their steaming brew and chanting their imprecations, they are ideal subjects for comedy sketches and magazine cartoons, not to mention informal gags at the kitchen range. But if an audience can immerse itself in the idea that people in Shakespeare's dark, savage Scotland believe seriously in mystic forces that can shape their lives and forecast their destinies, the play will unfold in all its power.

Symphony circus The lowdown -- Combine the fun of a circus with the music of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Cirque de la Symphonie. Watch aerial feats, strongmen, contortionists and jugglers while listening to classics such as Dvorak's Carnival Overture and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance." If you go -- The event is at 8 tonight at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, and at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Tickets are $30 at Strathmore; $25 for adults and $12.50 for children at the Meyerhoff.

Macbeth, poisoned by "vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself," remains one of Shakespeare's most arresting characters. Given the size of the bloody Scottish king's ego, and his fears, he's a natural for operatic treatment. Same for his ethically challenged wife. Giuseppe Verdi provided that treatment, resulting in one of his earliest (and often undervalued) masterworks. Washington National Opera's new production of Macbeth at the Kennedy Center - presented in conjunction with the citywide Shakespeare in Washington festival - underlines the theatrical flair and sweeping melodic power of Verdi's faithful homage to the Bard.