Macbeth

Actor Philip Lehl says, ”It’s one of those challenges that any actor can measure themselves by. It’s a great play and if you can do it well, then you’ve done something.” What he’s talking about is Macbeth, the final offering of this season by Stark Naked Theatre. Theater co-founders Lehl and wife Kim Tobin will play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (their first time acting together in a while), and David Matranga, who’s been all over Houston’s stages this season (even opera), will take on the role of the avenging Macduff.

Thanks to a prophecy from a trio of witches and with the urging of his ambitious wife, the vacillating Macbeth finally decides to kill King Duncan, taking Scotland’s throne for himself. Worse, he does it in his own home, breaking all sorts of hospitality rules. Things go further downhill as Macbeth props up his regime with tyranny and more death. But actions have ramifications, and both he and his wife are assailed by guilt and paranoia (cue the Lady’s famous sleepwalking scene). ”The subject matter is extremely timely right now. The subject of greed and selfishness, the ability to see past greed and ambition,” Tobin says. Or as Matranga puts it: ”Why it is that people make the choices and decisions that they make? Where does ambition and greed and power become the overarching need?” And then there’s the whole fate and superstition angle. Macbeth was already respected as a general and commander, Matranga says, when he encounters the witches. ”I wonder for Macbeth what his trajectory would have been had he not run into the witches and had they not said, ‘Hey, this is what you’re going to be.”’ An art exhibit, ”Haunted,” accompanies the show.

7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays and 7:30 p.m. June 17. Through June 22. Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring. For information, call 832-866-6514 or visit starknakedtheatre.com. Pay-what-you-can to $20.

Thursdays-Sundays; Mon., June 17. Starts: June 6. Continues through June 22, 2013