Theater: Odd Couple

MACBETH

by William Shakespeare

By rights, this play, like Antony and Cleopatra, should have a double title—something like Macbeth and Wife or Two on the Heath—for Lady Macbeth is fully as important as her husband. Hamlet can get along with a second-rate Ophelia, but if the actress who plays Lady Macbeth is inadequate, or just barely good, the entire play suffers accordingly. That, in brief, is what is wrong with Nicol Williamson's production, which opened at Manhattan's Circle in the Square last week. Andrea Weber may be a gifted young actress, but she is definitely not—or not yet—Lady Macbeth.

Nor is she a...