Ray Fisher is a larger-than-life Macbeth in solid Shakespeare Theatre of NJ production

AVERY BRUNKUS

Ray Fisher stars as the title character in The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of “Macbeth.”

There are currently two versions of Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy “Macbeth” running in New Jersey. In addition to The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production, which can be seen in Madison through Nov. 17, The Curtain is presenting “Macbeth” at The Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City. In his review of The Curtain’s “Macbeth” for NJArts.net, Jim Testa wrote that the title character, there, comes off as “not so much a warrior as a weasel,” and compared him to the feckless Roman Roy (as played by Kieran Culkin on HBO’s “Succession”).

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s two-act, one-intermission “Macbeth” — a thoroughly satisfying production that is directed by the theater’s artistic director, Brian B. Crowe — offers a more traditional interpretation of the title character, who is described, early in Act I, as “valor’s minion.” (Macbeth and his ally Banquo’s joint battlefield prowess make them seem “as cannons overcharged with double cracks,” it is said moments later.)

Ray Fisher — whose previous credits range from August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” on Broadway to the superhero movie “Justice League,” and who plays Macbeth here — is tall and muscular, and speaks in a deep, commanding tone. You can easily see how he would be imposing in war, and a natural leader in times of either war or peace. He is larger-than-life, in a way that not all Macbeths are. Indeed, this makes his downfall — where he gives in to his basest impulses, becomes the murderer of King Duncan (Earl Baker Jr.), Banquo (R.J. Foster) and others, and meets a tragic end — all the more heartbreaking.

This is a man who not only seems destined for greatness, but achieves it. At the beginning of the play, he is Thane of Glamis, and then, in appreciation of his wartime heroics, Duncan names him Thane of Cawdor as well. But he is done in — by fate, by flaws in his own nature and, perhaps most of all, by the ambition and manipulations of his wife, Lady Macbeth (Erin Partin).

AVERY BRUNKUS

Erin Partin as Lady Macbeth, with Aurea Tomeski, Ellie Gossage and Felix Mayes as The Three Witches.

“Art thou afeard/To be the same in thine own act and valor/As thou art in desire?” she asks when he hesitates to follow through on his plan to kill Duncan, basically driving him to evil by calling him a coward.

Macbeth is also spurred to traitorous action by the prophesies of the Three Witches, who are given an equally traditional interpretation. In Jersey City, they are portrayed “as adolescent wood nymphs in lacy peach dresses,” Testa wrote, but here, as played by Ellie Gossage, Felix Mayes and Aurea Tomeski, they are wizened, foreboding creatures. They appear and vanish mysteriously, dressed (by costume designer Rodrigo Muñoz) in ragged shreds of black, their faces hidden and their lines spoken in a singsongy cadence that makes them seem not quite human.

Partin does a good job of making us see how Lady Macbeth gets swept up in Macbeth’s heady successes; she makes the character’s eagerness for Macbeth to go even further, and become king, palpable. Her descent into madness is harrowing, as is Macbeth’s desolate “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy (in which he compares life to “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”) and his strenuous, protracted final sword fight with the stalwart, virtuous Macduff (Clark Carmichael).

Crowe stages the appearance of the deceased Banquo, as a ghost, for maximum shock effect, and has Partin, in an eerie transformation, speak the words of Hecate, Queen of the Witches, as if one character were supernaturally channeling the other.

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Ray Fisher and Clark Carmichael in “Macbeth.”

The set design, by Brian Ruggaber, and lighting design, by Andrew Hungerford, effectively create a grim, shadowy mood. Sound design, by Melanie Chen Cole, includes bold bursts of thunder and unsettling rumblings.

It must be added: I don’t think it is exactly a coincidence that two theaters in Northern New Jersey are presenting “Macbeth” at the same time. I’m not saying they jointly planned it this way. But “Macbeth” is, arguably, Shakespeare’s most powerful depiction of treachery in the pursuit of political power. And here we are, in a presidential election season in which you could see the treachery coming from a million miles away. It is not hard to imagine someone involved in theatrical planning thinking, months ago, that, in terms of politics, “something wicked this way comes” — as one of the Witches famously says — and getting the idea that October and November of 2024 would be a particularly good time to revisit “Macbeth.”

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present “Macbeth” at its F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison, through Nov. 17. Visit shakespearenj.org.