Theater: Richmond Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

Expect a bonus helping of witches if you attend Richmond Shakespeare's "Macbeth," which will be casting a spell at CenterStage's Gottwald Playhouse as part of the Acts of Faith Theatre Festival.

This popular tragedy technically begins with the line "When shall we three meet again?" spoken by one sinister female soothsayer to two companions. But in the "Macbeth" mounted by Jan Powell, an Oregon-based director paying a long-awaited visit to Richmond, the witchy trio has company.

In her seven-actor production, Powell explained in a recent interview, a human Macbeth is surrounded by witches, who periodically take on the guise of other characters. "These are not stereotypical Halloween witches at all," Powell said. Rather, they are "supernatural forces of nature that observe, that are eternal, that resonate with every act and every decision that Macbeth makes," so that the tragedy unspools "the way it happens in life: There are ripples from your good and bad decisions that affect everyone and everything."

Powell has given some serious thought to the Shakespearean canon. A freelance theater director, actor, scholar and coach, she has founded one Bard-focused theater troupe (Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company in Portland, Ore.), led another (Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival in Nevada); directed at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, among other venues; and written a doctoral thesis on questions relating to Shakespeare editions.

She also has served as president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association. Frequenting the group's meetings over the years, she got to know Grant Mudge, who was until recently Richmond Shakespeare's artistic director. Mudge invited Powell to Richmond to direct a production, and she was enthusiastic, but the timing never worked out. And then, this season, schedules finally synced, allowing her to take on "Macbeth."

Powell directed a version of the tragedy in Oregon last year, but that experience just whetted her appetite for the Richmond assignment. "There were some things I wanted to come back to," she said.

She also was intrigued by the opportunity to do her own edit of the play set in medieval Scotland. With an eye to the small cast size, she has trimmed the script, but not radically. "I'm such a fanatical lover of the text that I don't like to cut and slash the text," she said. "I trust Shakespeare."

Consulting with Mudge from afar (she watched some of the actors perform on Skype), Powell helped cast the show before she arrived in Richmond last month. Her actors, she said, are "fabulous."

Audiences at the Gottwald will be able to experience the performers at close range: Powell's staging is environmental, with sequences unfolding in various parts of the theater, including an alley between the seats. So far, the director is pleased with the result. "I know the play so well, and yet, watching the scenes, the way we're doing it, I often feel like I have no idea what's going to happen. It's a thriller!"

"Her take on the story is incredibly muscular," said actor Ryan Bechard, who plays the noble and ambitious warrior Macbeth. A performer whose local credits have included portraying Tybalt in Richmond Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Bechard said that Powell has a masterful command of Shakespeare's language. "The way she has you connect with the text is so intimate and real, it doesn't feel like it's difficult to comprehend."

Powell also has a flair for challenging her cast, Bechard said. "She pushes you as an actor to find the originality and the honesty of the performance."

The actors in "Macbeth" "are being stretched, and I think that's good," said Cynde Liffick, who is the director of education at Richmond Shakespeare and has been helping guide the organization since Mudge's departure at the end of last year.

The involvement of a high-powered Shakespearean like Powell has been a godsend for the company, Liffick said. "Now that we're in a transition, it's very important to make art the most important thing, and to make it the most high-caliber that we can."

As an out-of-towner, Powell also brings "an injection of fresh energy" to the troupe, Liffick said.

For her part, Powell says she wants to make sure her "Macbeth" isn't so fresh as to be discordant with Richmond Shakespeare's "ongoing aesthetic." A theater company should have a vision that is distinctive and locally rooted, she said.

"A theater, to me, is there to serve the community, to hear from the community; it's in dialogue with its community. It's one of the things I love about guest directing: I can come in and get a feeling for the society and the concerns and attitudes and points of view of its people. And I really enjoy responding to that."