STAGE REVIEW : ‘Kabuki Macbeth’ at Doolittle . . . Caught Between Cultures

As the crowd hit the sidewalk after the opening of “Kabuki Macbeth” at the Doolittle on Tuesday night, there was the Acting Company’s tour bus at the curb, straining to go.

It was a reminder of how many times the troupe has crossed the continent since ‘72, of how many fine actors they’ve turned out--Patti Lupone, Kevin Kline, David Ogden Stiers, etc.

That made you feel better about the Acting Company, but not about “Kabuki Macbeth.” A purist would say that it’s not Kabuki (not without a walkway and live musicians) and that it’s not “Macbeth” (not Shakespeare’s).

A non-purist would say that it just doesn’t get up any steam.

As a style exercise, it’s interesting. Can the story of “Macbeth” be told using Kabuki techniques? Yes. Can American actors be trained in some of those techniques? To a degree.

But don’t look for the urgency of Le Theatre du Soleil’s Kabuki-style “Richard II” or the wit of Leonard Pronko’s student productions of Kabuki at Pomona College.

And don’t expect anything like the authority of real Kabuki actors. The actors manage their vowels and consonants very well--you look forward to hearing them in “Much Ado About Nothing” next week. But their lack of dance training betrays them when it’s time to glide forward or to strike a pose.

They get there, but it’s by the numbers. Under those gorgeous square-rigged costumes, you sense some fairly ordinary bodies. Not even the sword fights have much style--Macbeth (Irwin Appel) versus Macduff (Mark Kincaid), Macbeth versus Duncan (Douglas Krizner.)

Shakespeare doesn’t, wisely, show Duncan’s murder. But the text here isn’t by Shakespeare. It’s by an American writer named Karen Sunde, after a scenario by director Shozo Sato, who has also done Kabuki treatments of “Medea,” “Othello” and “Faust.”

As we know from Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” the Macbeth legend goes very well into Japanese, with its stress on the warrior’s code and the sacredness of the king--here, the shogun. Sato generally sticks to the story, but simplifies it, so that we don’t get a sense of anyone’s reality but Macbeth’s and his wife’s.

That’s acceptable, as is the postlude where the lust for advancement that corrupted the Macbeths starts to work on Duncan’s younger son, Donalbain (Oliver Barreiro). Why should his brother Malcolm (Laura Perrotta) get the throne and not he? Perhaps Sato will next give us a Kabuki “Richard III.”

A female Malcolm? This may be to make up for the fact that a male, Spencer Beckwith, plays Lady Macbeth. That’s very Kabuki, and it gets across the idea that Lady Macbeth is twice the man her husband is. Beckwith does, however, sometimes suggest Norma Desmond looking for her last close-up--or even Tiny Tim.

The premise behind Irwin Appel’s Macbeth is that the deeper a man wades into blood, the more stupid he gets. That’s very moral and probably true. But once we’ve pegged this Macbeth as a pig--that first court scene in the second act, where everybody seems to be wearing costumes inspired by “Starlight Express”--we stop caring.

The witches (Constance Crawford, Oni Faida Lampley, Alison Stair Neet) are quite successful, perhaps the most successful element in the show. You will recall how silly the witches looked in the Music Center Opera Company’s recent production of Verdi’s “Macbeth,” which also had a Kabuki gimmick. Here they’re quite formidable--sexless shamans from some ancient cult, who have the power to appear on call.

Director-designer Sato does evoke a miasma of evil, partly through images (a splash of blood on a rice-paper panel--which would have been enough to establish Duncan’s death), partly through sounds (a mixture of traditional Kabuki music and an electronic score by Michael Cerri).

But in the end it’s a demonstration rather than a show.

‘KABUKI MACBETH’ Karen Sunde’s play, based on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” performed by the Acting Company at the James A. Doolittle Theatre. Presented by UCLA Center for the Performing Arts. Conceived, designed and directed by Shozo Sato. Lighting Dennis Parichy. Electronic music composed by Michael Cerri. Assistant director Todd Little. Staff repertory director Jennifer McCray. Production stage manager C. A. Clark. Stage manager Michael Trent. With Constance Crawford, Oni Faida Lampley, Alison Stair Neet, Irwin Appel, Paul Hebron, Spencer Beckwith, Rene Laigo, Oliver Barreiro, Laura Perrotta, Mark Kincaid, Douglas Krizner, Peter Lewis, Jonathan Nichols. Plays tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7:30 p.m., with Wednesday and Sunday matinees at 2. Closes Sunday. Tickets $6-$24. 1615 Vine St. (213) 480-3232 or (213) 825-9261.