Two variations of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth," both taking decidedly nontraditional approaches in staging, are opening in Salt Lake City and Ogden this week.

One production, directed by Daniel Elihu Kramer in the Lab Theatre of the University of Utah's Performing Arts Building, features three Macbeths and two Lady Macbeths, with both men and women playing each role.The version at WSU, adapted and directed by theater student Kyle Lewis, has a chorus of nine witches (instead of the traditional three). It also shifts the setting of Shakespeare's turbulent tragedy from 16th-century Scotland to a setting described as "post-holocaust, rebuilt-industrial."

- THE LAB THEATRE edition is a collaborative workshop effort involving players in their third year of the U.'s actor-training program - recognized as one of the top 13 in the country. This production marks the culmination of their study of Shakespeare and verse acting.

In creating this "Macbeth," the company has been experimenting with a variety of physical acting approaches and techniques derived from the work of Anne Bogard, an experimental director and acting theorist. There has been a particular focus on the work of the ensemble and on the actors' abilities to create evocative and revealing stage pictures and movement.

According to the director, this production is also unique in its signficant use of music, in its staging and humor.

Kramer, who is associate head of the U.'s MFA directing program, has taught directing, acting and Shakespeare at Fordham, Yale and Tulane universities and at the Old Globe Theatre. He is a graduate of the directing program at the Yale School of Drama.

Most recently he directed "All in the Timing" for Salt Lake Acting Company (which has been extended through March 12 in SLAC's Downstairs Theatre and may be extended again for a couple of additional weeks in the larger Upstairs space).

The Lab Theatre production of "Macbeth" will be staged in Room 115 of the Performing Arts Building, located just west of the campus book store.

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday-Saturday, March 9-11 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 12, with a matinee at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Tickets are $4 for adults (general admission seating) and $3 for students. They may be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 581-6961.

- THE WEBER STATE production is the Ogden school's entry in the 1994-95 Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival competition.

The drama will be staged Tuesday-Saturday, March 7-11, in the Monson Theatre, located in the lower level of WSU's Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts.

According to director Kyle Lewis, "Shakespeare took the old stories of his days and told them better than anyone else. That's why he was so successful. I believe if Shakespeare was alive today, he would be updating stories; he would be doing `Pulp Fiction.'

"For instance, swords no longer have an immediate impact on our society. In Shakespeare's time, the audience would have been horrified by the appearance of a sword. To update this image, I have taken the few references to sword and changed them to weapon. In our times, the `weapon of choice' is the handgun. A handgun has the potential to arrest the attention of our audiences."

Lewis is also changing Shakespeare's original concept for the witches.

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"The nine - not three - witches in our production have the quality of a Greek chorus. I have used them to suggest the perennial causes of war. They never leave the stage. They are frequently acting to motivate the other characters in their malevolent direction.

"Visual images are used to suggest their recurrence through war after war, including this production's post-holocaust war that could be. The witches don't participate in the killing - they just have malicious fun in playing the game with their human pawns.

"This emphasis on the witches does not relieve the individual of making moral choices. It presents those individuals with an opportunity to make a choice - right or wrong," Lewis noted.

Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students. Tickets will be available at the door, or in advance through the Dee Events Center box office.

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