Motes floated through the rafters. The gaps between the oak stared like an open mouth, the splintered edges, a conglomeration of teeth in a myriad of conjoined smiles. Isaac turned away from the ceiling to face the wall. Scorched black and soft with mold. Isaac assumed it was a sudden fire. A candle set too close to some paper or a cigar left burning. A family left asleep, oblivious to the danger. After having finished their suppers, they all retired to their rooms, eager and ready for bed. All of them succumb to a greater sleep. To death. The marks were old, but not forgotten. The entire room was painted over in soot. An accident. A mistake.
Her staging of the Scottish play opens with an arresting tableau. Lady Macbeth sits hunched over, her face hidden under a disheveled mane. As she rips out clumps of her hair, a portrait of Macbeth, her husband, starts spinning on a wall behind her — until an invisible knife seems to cut into the painting.
It’s an ominous way to position Lady Macbeth, as a shadow addition to the three witches who prophesy that Macbeth will be king. When the trio appears shortly afterward to deliver their message, a giant ring materializes above the empty stage. In true “Lord of the Rings” fashion, it then descends upon Macbeth (Noam Morgensztern), metaphorically anointing him even as recorded whispers of “murder” fill the Comédie-Française’s auditorium.
---
At the Comédie-Française, Costa’s “Macbeth” edits the two dozen named characters down to only eight actors and leans heavily into religious symbolism. In “Hamlet,” Jatahy goes so far as to keep Ophelia alive. Far from going mad, Ophelia climbs down from the stage and exits through the auditorium after declaring: “I died all these years. This year, I won’t die.”