Ojai Valley News
The Bard returns to the Ojai Art Center Theater with Macbeth, a joint production between the theater and the Ojai Performing Arts Theater. Taking the helm is director Michael Addison, a seasoned theatrical professional including a long history of Shakespearean productions, as an actor, director and producer. The play opens March 16 and runs weekends through April 8.
“We live in troubled times,” said Addison. “I wanted to do a production of Shakespeare that would be pertinent to us as a culture. First, I considered Merchant of Venice for the anti-Semitism on the alt-right, in American, Europe and Poland. But I’ve done three different productions of Merchant. I’ve played Macbeth, produced Macbeth but never directed it. As I thought about it the fact that the play is driven by a lust for power and how someone consumed by that lust quickly loses their moral ground, I selected it. I think precisely what we see happening in Macbeth is what is going on in our contemporary society. Thinking of the play in those terms resonates with who and what we are.”
Cast in the leads of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are Ojai thespian couple Ron Feltner and Jessi May Stevenson. “I’ve seen Ron and Jessi in a number of production, most recently in a little play call Outside Mullingar at the Santa Paula theater. I was stuck by two things; the sense of communion between them on stage, Jessi’s open femininity, sensuality and I was really taken by Ron who showed a side of a character with a whole lot of vulnerability. That combination is what I wanted for Macbeth.”
The play is also interesting because of the psycho-sexual dynamics between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. In my view, Macbeth is a man who has suppressed his desires for advancement, he’s beneath the salt, but his wife is very much aware of his yearnings and she wants him to be powerful. She goads, guides, seduces him to acting out his barely expressed ideal of murdering the king. I find that a very powerful core within the play.
The full cast for Macbeth is:
MACBETH – Ron Feltner
LADY MACBETH – Jessi May Stevenson
LADY MACDUFF – Jolene Rae Harrington
MACDUFF – Richard Kuhlman
MACDUFF’S SON – Coree Kotula
DUNCAN – Daniel Ruark
MALCOLM – Byron Hays
DONALBAIN – James Baker
BANQUO – Nigel Chisholm
FLEANCE – Taylor Wilson
SEYTON (A PORTER) – Bill Spellman
ROSS – Susan Kelejian
LENNOX – Eric Andersen
THE DOCTOR – Lynn Van Emmerik
A LADY – Susanna Joselyn Johansen
CAPTAIN – Clayton McLannock
SIWARD – John Valenzuela
YOUNG SIWARD – Eric Andersen
WITCHES – Anna Kotula, Denise Heller, Aaliyah Mora-Khan
WILD CHILD — Coree Kotula
MURDERERS – Leonard Klaif, James Baker, Daniel Ruark