Cacophonous crashes signal the opening. Searching beams of light swivel from the tops of a seeming-forest of scaffolding towers, crisscrossing through “fog and filthy air”. Nicola T Chang’s music, Hayley Grindle’s design and Chris Davey’s lighting plunge us into an ear-ringingly rigid landscape, all hard edges and mechanistic structures, central to them a giant drawbridge ramp that, when raised, becomes a hanging platform, exalting those who pace it, threatening to crush those below. This is an effective evocation of Shakespeare’s fast-paced, bloody drama about civil strife, ambition and their deadly consequences. Presentationally, then, this Macbeth is attention-grabbing and atmospheric; in other respects, though, Amy Leach’s production comes across as muddled and unfinished.
New material, spliced into the original, explores the Macbeths’ “journey to become parents”: a newborn son dies and is buried; Lady Macbeth, pregnant again, suffers a miscarriage. Aspects of this additional information are conveyed via action or gesture: as when Tachia Newall’s Macbeth kneels and places his ear against Lady Macbeth (Jessica Baglow)’s stomach. In relying so much on visuals, the company seems to go against its own aim of creating a performance that anyone with sight impairment will easily be able to follow.
Integration of deaf actors is poorly managed. Adam Bassett and Charlotte Arrowsmith give finely focused performances as Macduff and Lady Macduff but are ill-served by clumsy staging that makes interpretation between sign language and spoken language confusing. The whole audience, blind or sighted, deaf or hearing, is disadvantaged by the lack of clarity here, and by an overall clagginess of delivery (mismanaged stresses, inappropriate pauses) that makes meanings hard to grasp (weirdly, given that most actors use regional accents, which usually make Shakespeare’s language more accessible).
Emphasis on macho-style behaviours diminishes the witches (more wacky than weird) and Lady Macbeth (meekly enduring her husband’s physical aggression), but does deliver energetic battle scenes that are full of sound and fury. Leach’s inclusive intentions are praiseworthy but, in tackling too much at once, fall short of their goal.
Macbeth is at Leeds Playhouse until 19 March
