By Kelly Ashkettle

kashkettle@inthisweek.com

The Utah Shakespearean Festival is currently in full swing in Cedar City, with some interesting productions that I'll be reviewing for next week's issue. But you don't have to drive for four hours to see Shakespeare performed in Utah this month. Salt Lake Shakespeare is bringing "Macbeth" to the Babcock stage beginning on July 23.

"We have a strong Shakespearean festival in Cedar City," says SLS artistic director Hugh Hanson. "One of the best in the country. And they often do Shakespeare works in traditional forms. When Salt Lake Shakespeare began [in 1995], Alex Gelman [the original artistic director] wanted to set the plays in different periods and try to make Shakespeare more relevant to the present."

As a result, the company has often staged its works in modern dress or with other twists on the conventional. For this production of "Macbeth," the costumes will represent a mix of eras, to indicate that power's corrupting influence is a timeless theme.

Hanson, who became artistic director last year, says he's always wanted to direct "Macbeth."

"It is Shakespeare's most exciting play," he says. "It's the fastest-paced play. It shows its main character go through this huge change from beginning to end."

The cast of "Macbeth" is made up of the University of Utah Theatre Department's staff and alumni, with a few exceptions. Local actor Mark Fossen plays the title role of Macbeth, while his 9-year-old daughter, Cora, plays one of three apparitions who make prophecies to him.

This is Cora's second acting experience, and her first non-elementary school production, but it's far from her first exposure to the Bard.

You might say that the Fossen household was founded on Shakespeare. Mark and April Fossen met while acting in a production of "Romeo and Juliet," and they spent last summer at Sundance playing the fairy king and queen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Cora and her younger sister did a fair share of hanging around the set where their parents performed, and it seems to have rubbed off.

After Hanson cast Mark in "Macbeth," he called to ask whether Mark could recommend any child actors.

"I mentioned that I teach [at the Theatre Arts Conservatory] as well and I might know some kids that I could refer to him," Mark recalls. "And then as Cora overheard me, she started pointing at herself, indicating that she wanted to do it."

Cora was cast as an apparition, along with Connor Johnson and August Koshy from U. of U.'s Youth Theatre program.

"She's the third apparition, and she brings very good news to me, because I'm worried about what's going to happen," Mark says. "And she says, 'Well, nobody's going to come for you until the forest gets up and walks,' and so that's good news. So it's actually fun, because at the same time that I, the dad, am going, 'Yes, she remembered all of her lines and she did all of her blocking and it's perfect!' and I'm very happy about that, I'm also happy in the character, so I just can put those two together really easily."

The story of the Scottish general's journey to become king is a violent one, as he ascended the throne through murderous means. Legend has it that the first time the Shakespearean play was ever performed, prop daggers were swapped for real ones, resulting in a death.

Some say this is because the play is cursed for including real witches' spells. Actor tradition dictates that one should not say "Macbeth" in a theater unless one is working on that play because it will bring bad luck, so it is often referred to as "The Scottish play."

Barbara Smith, a University of Utah faculty member who will play Lady Macbeth in SLS's upcoming production, says she has first-hand experience with this curse.

She says she was teaching high school theater in Idaho with a cast made up partially of deaf students, and during a rehearsal, one of the students challenged the curse of "Macbeth."

"This kid said, 'Oh, I don't believe that. Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth,' " Smith recalls. "And that night, in the performance, one of the deaf girls ran right into one of the other girls, cut open her lip, was bleeding all over the stage and all over herself. And then we had another kid fall off a platform. And there was a third thing that happened where another actor got hurt."

While Smith says she'd never really believed in the curse before then, she decided to follow tradition by making the student leave the theater, run around it three times, and do a chant as a cleansing ritual.

One of the violent scenes in "Macbeth" occurs after the title character arranges for the brutal slaughter of a rival's wife and children. The three child actors in SLS's production will play these children in addition to playing apparitions and guests at a banquet.

Fortunately, Mark Fossen says, he doesn't have to pretend to kill his daughter, Cora. "I send people to do it," he says. "I don't have to do it myself. That might be too many years of therapy."

Cora explains how she and Hanson decided to play her murder scene. "He had an idea that when my brother's throat gets cut, I should act like I'm trying to scream," she says. "I'm so scared that I can't work my voice. To act really, really freaked out, because I'm the only child still alive." Cora says she's also having fun figuring out how to turn her head really fast so it looks like her neck's been snapped.

All this is a bit traumatic for her father to watch. "We have an excellent fight choreographer [Paul Kiernan] who makes sure we're safe," Mark says. "I know the tricks they're pulling. But still, the day I walked in and saw her neck snap and her body go limp, I did stop and go, 'That's sort of a chill down my spine.' "

Mark has played the role of Macbeth once before, when he was a 20-year-old college student. Then, he says, he went for a fairly obvious interpretation. This time, he and Hanson are making some different choices, such as addressing Macbeth's soliloquies to the audience as opposed to just having him talk to himself.

"What you're going through in some of those speeches is so intense that it's difficult to actually try and look in somebody's eyes and share that with somebody," Mark says. "It's a challenge to try to make them all direct addresses and try to bring the audience along with me on the journey of all the horrible things that he does instead of them just watching what he does."

In many ways, he says, it's a more mature approach. "It's a lot less self-indulgent," he explains. "When you're ranting and railing and emoting and chewing the scenery, it's great fun when you're a young actor. But when you get older, at least what I've come to realize, is that what you're feeling on stage doesn't mean anything. It's if you can tell the story to the audience. Making sure you're clear on all your lines and bringing them along with you is not as fun, but I think it's more rewarding for the audience."

Another thing that's different this time around, he says, is that he's better able to leave the character behind when he's done playing it. "It's fun to be the tortured artist, drinking and carousing and getting upset and carrying it with you," he says, "but I can't. I'm 40 years old and I've got a job and kids, and I can't be that anymore. And as awful and as tortured as I feel during the play, as soon as we finish and take a break, Cora's right there and I go hang out with her and I remind myself that it's just a part of me. I'm still a dad. It's great; it keeps it all in perspective."

While working on this story about the quest for the throne, Cora seems to be finding some ambitions of her own. "I want to be in a lot of plays," she says, "And I want to actually audition for some of them. I don't want to get them just by pointing at myself during a phone call."