By Harry Haun
09 Apr 2008

As befitted the Old Guard crowd, the opening night party was held at Sardi's — "just like the old days," everybody kept saying. It was contained in the main dining room on the first floor, with tables with various foods scattered about (the brisket was especially good). Seating was limited, but first-nighters seemed content to stand around with their plates eating and visiting. Press interviews were conducted in the "Honeymooners" bar just off the entrance — a tad cramped and chaotic, but do-able.

	Roger Rees, Carolyn McCormick, Peter Strauss, Jacques d'Amboise, Lynn Nottage and Philip J. Smith.
	photos by Aubrey Reuben

To look at him beaming blissfully below his dashing moustache, you might well deduce that this was the opening Stewart had been circling for his whole career. Pre-career, he corrected. "I have been waiting to play this role since I was 14."


 Did he feel he had to be an actor of a certain age to do justice to Macbeth? "I don't at all," he shot back without much undue thought. "Other people [read: critics] seem to think so. However, if you scour the play, you'll find no reference to anybody's age."

The "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech, delivered over the lifeless body of his lady, leaves a special ache with the audience. Rarely has his magnificent voice been employed to such eloquent effect. It numbers among his favorite moments in the play. "I enjoyed all the scenes I have with Kate. As well as being an extraordinary actress, she is a dear friend and collaborator, and we have a lot of fun together. We twinkle at one another a lot. She's very free. We have a great time."

Fleetwood arrived in a relieved and giddy frame of mind, in stark contrast to how she left the audience at the theatre. "This feels fantastic! I mean, Sardi's! I'm going to have champagne, then I'm going to get totally 'kaplunk,' and we going to have to leave.

"It has been a great end of a journey — a year-long journey. It was a year last week for the company. It was only supposed to be, like, five months — but it was hugely successful, and you know we're all suckers for success. It has been wonderful."

Is Lady M the enormous emotional drain one imagines for an actress? The question prompts Fleetwood to put things in proper perspective. "Well, I'm a mom," she said. "I get up and do this play every night, but in the morning I'm a mom. Rafael is two and a half, and he gets my real energy. It's only draining when the door between the play and me as a performer is invisible. I walk through a door every night to be Lady Macbeth in my mind. So far, the energy I'm using I use giving care to my little one."

She gives her director full credit for making her acting ordeal easier. Goold just happens to be her husband of eight years. "Oh, he's great. I think he's great. We met doing Romeo and Juliet. And we did Othello together. We have always done Shakespeare together. This is my tenth Shakespeare. I've done lots of other things, too, but I grew up at Stratford-on-Avon, so Shakespeare was always my god."

Martin Turner, who was Oberon in a Midsummer Night's Dream at Lincoln Center a few years ago, delights nightly in making Banquo's bummer party-entrance at the end of the first act. "I really love it," he confessed. "It was a longer walk at BAM. There's a little magic in there somewhere. It's a little more rush now. I mean, all I do is step on Lady Macbeth's chair, and I'm practically there right in front of Patrick."

The evening's Malcolm who winds up King of Scotland waving Macbeth's freshly decapitated head in the air, Scott Handy, was aware his yardstick for the role — Roger Rees — was among the first-nighters. "I saw him, and I nearly swallowed my supper. I saw him here, but I haven't had the courage to talk to him yet. I haven't had enough to drink because he was a famous Malcolm in the last truly famous Macbeth with Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. And I also saw him as Hamlet at the National. When you see colleagues like that across the room, your heart goes in your mouth.

"It's strange to be on Broadway. I don't know how that happened. Somebody shuffled the deck. Maybe the writers' strike. Lots of different things worked in our favor — the fact that we have two wonderful American actors in the cast, and the fact that maybe Patrick has some currency here [via "Star Trek: The Next Generation"] that maybe a normal English actor would not. I think that and the fact that it sold out at BAM meant that American Equity felt that we could have a shot at this.

"Whatever the reasons, by hook or by crook, it's just something to see. You've got a sprinkling of dust in the air — about Sardi's, about Broadway — it's just really special."

One reason this Macbeth saw the bright lights at the end of the tunnel is producer Emanuel Azenberg. "I think it's as good a production of Macbeth as we've ever seen," said the man who put his money where his mouth is. "I saw it at Chichester and tried to bring it here, but there were union problems. Then, it opened in London and got great reviews. When they knew they couldn't come to Broadway, they made the arrangement with BAM, and then subsequently Equity gave its okay.

"I like it. It's not about money. It's not that. It's just good. The kids are good. My director is good. You have to know. Look at the choices he makes! How could you not produce something like this! You understand. There are about only 12 of us left."

Director Frank Dunlop, himself no stranger to Macbeth, raved enthusiastically about the fresh ideas percolating in this production. "I've directed it three times," he said. "The first time was with Judi Dench and John Neville. Many years ago, we went on a tour of West Africa, and we opened in an open-air cinema in Lagos. The screen was all concrete behind us, and we didn't know the local meat market was behind us. On the top of the screen, all through the performance, were vultures, and the vultures sat and watched the show, waiting for the bodies. It's true. And they were the best audience ever for the witches' scenes."