(Foreground) Laila Robins as Lady Macbeth and (background) Robert Cuccioli as Macbeth. Photo © Gerry Goodstein.

Variety hails, "Robert Cuccioli has crafted a Macbeth of fire and intelligence"

"So courageously stunning in its concept, so dynamically different from any previous, cheers should be heard across the country," says the Princeton Packet.

"Don't make the mistake of saying, 'I've seen it before.' Not until you've seen Bonnie Monte's 'Macbeth'," says the Daily Record

"Broadway stars Robert Cuccioli and Laila Robins take evil to a new level," says The New York Times

Excerpted from
A Gory Tale of a Henpecked Husband and a Desperate Housewife

By Naomi Siegel

Sunday, October 31, 2004

You have to hand it to the Weird Sisters.

At The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's current production of "Macbeth," these three "filthy hags," traditionally minor league bit players, have moved into Principal Player territory, trading in their usual four brief scenes of foggy rumination and cauldron bubbling for a nearly full-time presence.

With a sheer black curtain for cover (what other color would you expect in this darkest of Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies?) The director, Bonnie J. Monte, has the lovely ladies poised provocatively behind, or, in the manner of a Greek chorus, in the wings – silent, watching, waiting....The effect is chilling.

But that is not all that is chilling. The Broadway stars Robert Cuccioli and Laila Robins, cast as the upwardly mobile, increasingly possessed and desexed Macbeths, take evil to a new level here.

Mr. Cuccioli, bitten early by the Weirdo's bug, turns his initially jocular Macbeth into a brooding, wild-eyed killer almost before he can finish musing on "where done…'tis done" and "done quickly." This just following a jolting upchuck as he arrives home to play host to the doomed King Duncan (Raphael Nash Thompson).

Ms. Robins, dressed ravishingly by Frank Champa in spider-web black, mocks her husband's nature as "too full o' th' milk of human kindness" from the moment she learns of the witches' kingly prediction. Hissing, snarling and spurring Macbeth to action, she comes on like a fury.

Past an initial welcome home that finds Lady M. jumping wildly into her hubby's loving arms and receiving an affectionate pat on the derrière, a growing estrangement between this murderous couple leaves little room for cuddling. The passionless way Mr. Cuccioli's Macbeth processes the news of his wife's death tells all...

..."Macbeth" is brief for Shakespeare, and its "fierce engagement between the mind and its guilt," to quote the critic Frank Kermode, gives its energy. Here in Madison, this insures an evening of riveting drama, if not one of heartbreak in the face of tyranny run amok.

© New York Times Co.

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Conquering Shakespeare, and Superstition
By Peter Filichia
Monday, October 25, 2004

So Joe Discher, the associate artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, came out to welcome Saturday's opening night crowd to "Macbeth" -- and in doing so, said the title of the play three times.

Some in the Madison playhouse gasped in surprise. Stage-savvy folk aren't supposed to say "Macbeth" when they're on-stage or backstage; "The Scottish Play" is the preferred euphemism. Superstition dictates that disaster will strike if "Macbeth" is even whispered.

Another notion debunked. For artistic director Bonnie J. Monte's smart production certainly wasn't harmed by Discher's uttering the feared title.

Right away, Monte shows she's up for something new. The three witches who open the play are usually cackling crones. Here they're unswervingly calm as they make their predictions that Macbeth will eventually supplant Duncan as King of Scotland. Later, when they take off their hoods, they'll be shown to be quite beautiful, too.

Monte's masterful conceit is that these witches may eventually become apparitions inside Macbeth's head. After all, any man who sees the ghost of a man he had killed (in a startlingly staged scene) could be constantly haunted. That Monte chooses to bring many more than three witches on stage (in another startlingly staged scene) well-supports Macbeth's madness.

Robert Cuccioli shrewdly plays Macbeth as an innately weak man who doesn't have The Right Stuff to be king. After he says, "I have done the deed," he seems as if he's just about to vomit. Even in moments when he's at his apex as monarch, he shows a fear that his day of reckoning will inevitably come. What dismay he shows in his sad eyes when he must meet Macduff, whom he has greatly wronged.

As Lady Macbeth, Laila Robins is riveting from her first scene, when she reads her husband's letter that mentions the witches predicted great things for him. How Robins' eyes flash when the idea of becoming Scotland's first lady first occurs to her. When Macbeth arrives, she says, "Leave all the rest to me" with unbridled optimism.

After the coup, she adapts to her queenly duties quite charmingly, too -- though she isn't above turning on her husband when he wavers. What contempt she then spews out as she questions his masculinity. Yet she too will come to the conclusion that crime, especially assassination, doesn't pay, in her harrowing last scene.

The rest of the cast scores equally well. Raphael Nash Thompson is a regal Duncan who hasn't lost the common touch. As Macduff, Gregory Derelian has the strength of a fairy-tale hero who arrives in the nick of time. Eric Hoffmann is the Porter who ably provides the bit of comic relief with jokes about sex and alcohol. What fun he is, too, in a scene where he expects a tip. The character definitely needs to be reminded that "tip" is often thought to be an acronym for "to insure prompt service." (He doesn't.)

Michael Schweikardt has provided a simple but starkly effective set. Brenda Gray compensates with effective lighting. Rick Sordelet always provides impressive stage fights, but the one here is particularly thrilling.

Does this prove that one can utter "Macbeth" in a theater? Not necessarily, but many attendees will say "Macbeth" to their friends and neighbors when telling them what show to see in the next few weeks.

© nj.com

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Excerpted from the review by Robert L. Daniels

Monday, October 28, 2004

Bonnie J. Monte's production of "Macbeth" for The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey has both star power and a palatable cutting thrust. Monte has paced the Bard's most foul and devious tragedy with a stealthy sense of impending doom and harnessed the fury with an unnerving severity, lending the Scottish play an austere and uncluttered sense of urgency.

Robert Cuccioli, Broadway's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has crafted a Macbeth of fire and intelligence. There is a rugged physical strength that dominates his presence, and there lurks behind his sturdy, handsome presence a commanding blend of drive and stature.

Laila Robins is a sensual Lady Macbeth, ruthless and ambitious, full of passion. Her cunning collusion with her cautiously optimistic husband reveals a decidedly cool, foxy edge that would make any virile male submit.

Her sleepwalking scene, motivated by seeds of guilt and madness, is one of icy grandeur and potency.

The romantic moments between the plotting mates are feverishly passionate and lusty. When Macbeth returns from the battlements, his impatient hot-blooded wife leaps into his arms, wrapping her legs around him with abandon. (Cuccioli and Robins previously teamed in "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Guthrie Theater.)

Finally, we have a genuinely sexy and seductive Lady Macbeth who could manipulate any ambitious man. Gregory Derelian is a sturdy Macduff; one of power and vengeance. Michael Stewart Allen's Banquo is soldierly staunch and severe, and Jimonn Cole's Malcolm has princely presence. There is fatherly dignity in the doomed Duncan as acted by Raphael Nash Thompson. Eric Hoffman mines the humor of the tipsy castle porter.

The slaughter of Macduff's "babes" is one of Shakespeare's most terrifying and numbing moments, and Monte has cast beautiful children to make a devastating theatrical statement that makes the blood run cold.

A stylistically vivid duel to the death between Macbeth and Macduff has been staged with cutting-edge fury by fight director Rick Sordelet.

The witches are hardly the cackling "midnight hags" of Macbeth's twisted imagination, but lovely, stealthy phantoms who stalk about in the shadows like Dracula's nocturnal brides...

... Brenda Gray's lighting design is the ideal Halloween setting for ghostly imagery. The atmospheric set design by Michael Schweikardt is enfolded in curtains and bathed in candlelight. The players are wrapped in suitable threads created by Frank Champa that complement the gloomy ambiance of the action. Sound support is accented by atmospheric musical cues.

© 2004 Reed Business Information

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The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
offers a spooky take on "the Scottish play."

By Stuart Duncan

October 27, 2004

It has become so common these days for a Shakespeare play to be shifted both in time and location that when a production remains true to the original, it is worthy of comment. But an entirely new interpretation of a classic -- Macbeth, for example -- as you have never seen it before, that's cause for celebration.

Bonnie Monte's staging of "the Scottish play" at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison is so courageously stunning in its concept, so dynamically different from any previous, cheers should be heard across the country.

Perhaps what Ms. Monte has done with Macbeth can best described in a poem: "Just in time for Halloween/ The witches are in every scene." Indeed, the "weird sisters" lurk silently in the shadows, gliding wordlessly across thresholds just out of reach, almost out of sight, but always present. They become not only Macbeth's obsession, but ours. It is as if Ms. Monte has dared to challenge the age-old definition of a Shakespearean tragedy -- "the fall of a powerful man from a high position because of some tragic flaw in his own personality" -- and combined it with the even older Greek definition: "Man against the gods (fates)."

And Ms. Monte has indeed dared. Further, she has dared to give the witches faces and sensuality. One of their faces belongs to pretty Caralyn Kozlowski, who bewitched us as Desdemona and Ophelia in past seasons. The sisters may be "weird," but no one said they were ugly. The director even has dared to bring them into Macbeth's bed chamber for the last confrontation, rather than the heath. It is there he hears warnings of "Birnham wood come to Dunsinane" and "no man born of woman." The witches seem as obsessed by him as he is by them.

But this production is far more than merely a new approach. Robert Cuccioli as Macbeth and Laila Robins as Lady Macbeth give towering performances. But make no mistake, this is his play, and Mr. Cuccioli shows how well he has learned his craft by flicking away competitors. Ms. Robins has a magnificent moment in the sleep-walking scene, but it is Mr. Cuccioli who dominates this production -- and with such ease and grace that one can almost forget "something wicked this way comes."

Raphael Nash Thompson is a strong King Duncan and Michael Stewart Allen a sensitive Banquo. Gregory Derelian is a powerful Macduff, while Eric Hoffmann gives a delicious comedic touch as the drunken porter.

Set designer Michael Schweikardt, in keeping with the dark mood of the work, has provided a backdrop with four doors, minimal pieces that slide onto the stage to represent the few interiors. Frank Champa's costuming suggests the period in Scotland without precisely pinning it down. Fight coordinator Rick Sordelet, in his 13th season with the group, gives us a wonderful hand-to-hand battle between Macbeth and Macduff -- a battle often held offstage -- that begins with swords, used dirks and ends up with fists.

So much has been brilliant this season in Madison; a superb Of Mice and Men and now this gem.

© News Classifieds Entertainment Business - Princeton and Central New Jersey 2004

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Shakespeare Theatre takes a new look at "Macbeth"
By William Westhoven
Friday, October 29, 2004

In her director's notes, Bonnie J. Monte talks about when evil becomes "almost tangible, like shadows all around us." Her vision of evil as a palpable force is tangibly manifested in the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's breathtaking new edition of "Macbeth."

In addition to being one of the most powerful, not to mention bloody, tragedies in the Shakespeare canon, "Macbeth" has in some circles been described as one of the Bard's greatest love stories. The lustful passion between Macbeth and his Lady Macbeth is as blinding as the ambition they share. In this production, Monte mingles these feelings with guilt, fear and uncertainty and the cauldron nearly boils over in an orgy of emotion.

Witness the witches who get the story rolling by heralding Macbeth as the future king of Scotland. Normally presented as cackling hags, Monte's wicked ladies are sensuous sirens whose visit with Macbeth in Act 2 is nothing less than erotic. And rather than let Macbeth wrestle with invisible demons, Monte's witches follow him around and multiply at an alarming rate.

The tangible quality of these emotions is represented by the leads, Robert Cuccioli and Laila Robins, longtime stars of the New York and New Jersey stage. Having either one in your production of "Macbeth" would be a casting coup. Having landed both made this show a hot ticket six months before rehearsals began.

The fact that they are a couple in real life, having been introduced to each other by the director, adds a Hollywood-style aura to the production. And their obvious chemistry helps to brand this as one of the more memorable "Macbeths" in recent history.

If you know the name, but are fuzzy on the story, let's review. The witches foretell Macbeth of his regal future shortly after he wins a brave battle in the service of the King of Scotland (Rafael Nash Thompson, last year's "Othello"). Macbeth, believing the prophecy, angered by the king's decision to name his son as successor and urged on by his ambitious wife, Lady Macbeth, reluctantly plots to murder the king. Before his good side can talk him out of it, "the deed is done" and sets off a chain of bloody events where Macbeth is haunted by visions of his of victims, driven to madness (along with the Lady, who is way ahead of him) and usurped by the living who have found him out.

Cuccioli, one of the most versatile actors on either coast, easily adjusts from the roomy expanse of the Paper Mill Playhouse, where he starred last season in "The Sound of Music" and "Guys and Dolls," to the intimate confines of the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre.

With his handsome face obscured by scruffy gray whiskers, his eyes draw your focus as they stare down his enemies with steely resolve, then dart back and forth as he grows more and more paranoid. Finally, they nearly pop out when fear paralyzes most of his body, except for his hands, which shake uncontrollably.

Cuccioli's only problem is the climactic fight scene with Macduff, which is realistically staged but goes on too long and leaves him dead as well as breathless, forcing him to play a corpse while gasping for air.

Robins, wrapped tightly in black widow's lace, gets so close to her character you begin to worry for her well-being. She greets the king to her home like a demure housewife, then drops her voice a throaty octave as she goads her husband down the dark path. Her descent into insanity in the second act, observed by two characters that give her plenty of room to work, is by itself worth the price of admission.

The supporting cast is equally able, including Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey regulars Eric Hoffmann as the one source of humor in the play (a devilishly slow porter) and Caralyn Kozlowski, whose long mane of blonde hair makes her witch look a lot like Lady Macbeth, yet another interesting choice for a play rich in visual symbolism.

Don't make the mistake of saying, "I've seen it before." Not until you've seen Bonnie Monte's "Macbeth." There's no telling how long it will be before something this wicked comes this way again.

© 2004 Daily Record

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