CAPSULE REVIEW : Julia Makes Evil Human in ‘Macbeth’

Any production of “Macbeth” with as interesting an actor as Raul Julia in the title role should be home free. The New York Shakespeare Festival’s revival, now on view at the Public Theater, is about halfway there.

The best thing about it is Julia, who plays the renegade Scottish king as a fearful monarch driven by a desire to be found out, rather than as a symbol of pure evil.

Watch his eyes. And you can in the small, tightly enclosed playing area in the Public’s Anspacher Theater. They are forever darting, never resting on one person or another. But the looks get more steely, more crazed as the killings go on and Macbeth tries to consolidate his power.

Julia negotiates the big soliloquies with skill. His voice is strong, resonant; his manner thoughtful. There’s even a hint of dark humor as he gradually gets caught up in the bloodletting and accepts it as inevitable. But he has little rapport with Melinda Mullins, a disappointment as Lady Macbeth.

Richard Jordan’s straightforward direction is workmanlike, almost tentative. Still, there are striking moments. Banquo’s ghost is a quite literal apparition--a walking zombie doused in blood. And when Macduff learns about the death of his family, he pulls a hood over his head in grief.

“Macbeth” is Shakespeare’s most desolate play, but there’s always Julia’s intelligence at work to keep you absorbed. He makes that evil seem very human indeed.