Lady Macbeth on trial

Local Theater’s ‘Undone: The Lady M Project’ imagines an afterlife for ‘Macbeth’s’ scheming wife

To review: Macbeth ends with the usurper being beheaded by Macduff and Lady Macbeth committing suicide. In a sequel of sorts from Local Theater Company, she’s spared in limbo by the three witches and put on trial for her crimes.

To be sure, there’s plenty of unresolved emotional baggage from the wreckage wrought by the overly ambitious “Lady M” and her murderous husband. In Undone: The Lady M Project, the queen is made to answer for all her nasty plotting in a kangaroo court created by the witches Eshu (Abner Genece), Corbus (Thadd Krueger) and Senga (Chelsea Frye).

Conceived by Anne Penner and Mare Trevathan and written by them along with Hadley Kamminga-Peck, Undone is staged in the lovely, intimate space of The Savoy in Denver. Directed by Trevathan, the action starts where Macbeth left off, with Lady M (Penner) hanging herself. Her demise is interrupted by a servant, Greer (Emelie O’Hara), who pleads with the witches to give her a shot at redemption. When they agree to take it to trial, Greer assumes the role of defense counsel while the ghost of Duncan (Matthew Schneck) pops in to play prosecuting attorney and the audience is designated as the jury.

Staged in black-box style with no set, the show is beautifully lit by Mandy Kay Heath with scenic designer Krista Montoya making use of lighted curtains on either side. The effect is ethereal and other-worldly — a place where things like witch trials can take place as part of the normal course of business.

The thoughtful, fanciful costumes by Holly-Kai Hurd include Genece sporting a kind of goggle-monocle and O’Hara in a playhouse-style outfit that recalls Luigi from “Super Mario.” Lady M herself is in a billowy, black-and-white ensemble perfectly suited to her limbo status, and Schneck is in a loose, all-white suit with very comfortable-looking white slippers — a good ghost getup. But Hurd saved the best for the witch Corvus, with Krueger rocking what can only be described as a shawl of crow feathers matched with bi-colored pants and a pair of leather gloves with both lights and timepieces on them. The actor is a joy to behold in the part, reveling in the character’s power and regularly letting loose with witty pronouncements.

Trevathan’s direction is tightly choreographed, with the characters moving about the empty stage in purposeful arrangements. This creates the effect of a continual flow of action that adds to an already arresting visual performance.

So, what kind of chance does Lady M have at being acquitted? She’s not a great defendant, prone to admitting to any and all of the charges leveled against her. Her game attorney Greer is forever wincing at her responses and trying to steer her away from incriminating disclosures, but the queen doesn’t seem as interested in exoneration as she is in simply not crossing the River Styx. As Greer, O’Hara is spot-on as the unwitting defense attorney, filling a role that, so far as I can tell, does not exist in Macbeth or any other Shakespeare play.

Penner is devastating in the lead, physically embodying a pained and guilt-ridden character with her face and in her movements at every turn. She plays Lady M both as a commanding presence and someone largely submissive to the forces aligned against her. As her opposition, Schneck does nice work playing Duncan as the enormously frustrated victim with every fact on his side — yet fated to be undermined by Eshu as the witch-turned-judge rules against him at every turn. Genece is a hoot as a puppet master simply enamored with his power to let things play out as they will, and Frye brings a lot of laughs as a bossy spirit determined not to let witchy stereotypes unfairly depict her and her colleagues.

With all these wonderful pieces in place, Undone is a bit undone itself with third act of sorts that seems almost unnecessary. While Lady M’s post-suicide presence is explained well enough, the later arrival of her non-headless husband many centuries later — and far from Scotland — is a sharp left turn. Orion Carrington is a commanding presence in the role, but I couldn’t help but wish that Macbeth’s appearance — if it had to be — was both earlier and better explained. The script also delivers some present-day socio-political lines that seemed jarring in a play that has “real” witches.

Although currently out of favor, an intermission between what are essentially two wildly different acts might have helped with the transition betwixt time and place. I’d thought the play was about over after — with a little audience participation — Lady M’s fate was decided. It’s a lot to ask an audience to strap back in for another entire scene so disconnected from the previous action.

Undone: The Lady M Project came out of Local Theater’s new-play development series, Local Lab. Billed as a world premiere, this version may be the finished product, but it still seems not quite there. It’s all the more mysterious since the writers set forth with the idea of giving more of a female perspective to the story, and certainly hearing Lady Macbeth’s side of things drives much of the play’s appeal. Why haul the testosterone back into the action after all else is settled?

Even if it doesn’t all add up plot-wise, the production itself is so richly textured and lovingly performed that it still makes for a nice night out at the theatre.