Samuel Pepys saw Macbeth eight times. What he liked best, apart from the acting of Thomas Betterton, was the singing and dancing. But then he didn’t see Shakespeare’s version; he saw William Davenant’s adaptation. I suspect the only place you could see a singing and dancing Macbeth nowadays would be in Verdi’s opera and in the Zulus’ Umbatha, a tribal warrior version, whose high point are the pounding feet and drumming.
Director Carrie Cracknell and Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin have done some heavy cutting to Shakespeare’s text and added a lot of movement; but the movement bears little relation to the play. Lizzie Clachan’s set is a long grey tunnel receding into the distance with moving walls and hidden doors. The stage is piled high with body bags.
The witches are certainly weird. Strutting and fretting they look like shop-window mannequins waiting for clothes. The much-loved King Duncan, famous for his goodness, has been turned into a thug. The Porter has gone completely. John Heffernan and Anna Maxwell Martin won’t be most people’s idea of the Macbeths; but at least Heffernan speaks his lines distinctly.