Macbeth

With the average speed along Macbeth Way reaching well above the posted limit, residents are asking the county to deter speeders with stop signs.In a meeting with the county Department of Public Works yesterday, Michael Merges of the Hilltop Community Association said recent studies show that the average rate through the 25-mph zone is 43 mph.Macbeth Way, a 40-foot-wide road that winds through several South Carroll developments, attracts speeders, said...

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.

After two months of planning for a production of "Macbeth," some Chesapeake High School students' tastes have changed from Beavis and Butthead to Shakespeare.The students have gotten past the intricacies of Elizabethan English, surely a foreign language to many, and burrowed deep into the culture of the play."It's really fun and cool and bloody," said Tim Grieb, 15, a sophomore who plays Macduff. "And it's a chance to sword-fight."But they have learned more than violence and gore. They have gotten a Freudian psychoanalysis of the characters and symbols in the play from psychology students, details on Scottish castles and a political history of the era from English students, and a taste of Scottish and English dishes from home economics students.

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.

Plans to alleviate traffic congestion on major roads in South Carroll, the county's most populated area, are running afoul of residents, who fear their side streets will become thruways.Nearly 100 MacBeth Way residents barraged the county commissioners at a public hearing in Eldersburg on Monday with complaints about traffic volume and speeding on their street, which is one of several officials plan to make into connector roads for local motorists.About 200 homes line both sides of MacBeth Way, a 3.25-mile road that nearly parallels Liberty Road, a state highway that is at the heart of Eldersburg.

As Yuri Temirkanov can attest, Westerners love to typecast Russian artists. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's music director invariably is thought of first as a conductor of Russian repertoire, even if his approach to, say, Gustav Mahler is every bit as potent. Likewise, the Kirov Opera at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg invariably is thought of first as a company that performs Russian works, no matter how many other things it effectively puts on stage. Not surprisingly, then, the Kirov Opera's memorable visit to the Kennedy Center had the public clamoring most for performances of a Russian item, Mussorgsky's Khovanschina, rather than Verdi's early masterwork, Macbeth.

That damned spot. It's there in "Macbeth" whether it's there or not, hence the questions for any director who takes on the play: How much blood is too much or not enough? It's one thing to say that this William Shakespeare tragedy is thematically steeped in blood -- that the stuff metaphorically drips from the walls, bubbles from the witches' caldron, and darkens the skies over Dunsinane and the souls of its treacherous protagonists. It's another to actually deal with the red goo onstage.

Adrian Danzig's face can say a lot, especially when he's got his mouth gaped so far open it might harbor bears. The cavernous mouth, the squinty eyes, the whole look is about what you'd expect from a man standing on stage with firecrackers exploding in his kilt. Physical and emotional danger are things many performers try to bring to the stage or screen and fewer manage. The 500 Clown troupe would have you experience the imminence of catastrophe, things unraveling, characters in deepening toil and trouble.

Roll over, Verdi. Since 1847, the music world has recognized only one significant operatic version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the one by Verdi. That work is still in no danger of being supplanted, but audiences will soon get to hear a few notes by another eminent composer who, about 35 years before Verdi, was attracted to the idea of turning that play into an opera - none other than Beethoven. On Sept. 20 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the National Symphony Orchestra will give the world premiere of the Overture to Beethoven's Macbeth - or at least the next best thing.

Making merry with `Macbeth' Macbeth is rarely thought of as a laughing matter, but the Chicago troupe 500 Clown will do its best to change that perception when its signature piece, 500 Clown Macbeth, makes its Baltimore debut at the Creative Alliance tomorrow. Despite the title, the audience-interactive show is performed by just three clowns - Molly Brennan, Adrian Danzig and Paul Kalina - each of whom yearns to play Macbeth. They end up competing not only with each other, but with everything from beepers to falling scenery.