Crucible’s prestige production of 
the Scottish play

The evidence? Not only is he in a position to say things like “this is the third autumn in a row we’ve done a big Shakespeare tragedy”, he’s also really got his hands on the theatre’s famous main stage. So much so, that for his latest production he has completely changed the shape of the stage.

The Crucible is one of only a handful of thrust stages in the country, which means the audience sits around the stage on three sides. For his production of Macbeth, which opened at the Crucible this week, Evans has reconfigured the stage and turned it into an in-the-round. This means the audience will sit all around the stage, with the action happening in the centre of the circle.

While it is not the first time the Crucible theatre has been transformed in this way, it is a major undertaking and certainly not something done regularly to the stage. That Evans has the confidence to so radically reconfigure the stage for the production says something about how he feels about running the venue.

“I am in my fourth year now,” says Evans, wary of overstating his experience and the extent to which he feels an ownership of the three Sheffield Theatres venues of which he has charge.

“I feel I have more of a measure of the place – but there’s always something new around the corner.

“I certainly don’t think I’ve worked it all out and nor would I want to feel like that. It’s always a challenge, particularly in these times where funding is harder and harder to come by.

“The challenge is to find new audiences and new ways to bring people through the doors.”

One way to do that is to stage brilliant productions.

Evans programmed a Hamlet with John Simm in 2010, which proved a hit, then last year followed it up with his version of Othello. The casting of Clarke Peters in the title role and Dominic West as Iago brought audiences literally from around the world.

This year the star casting is arguably less stellar, with Geoffrey Streatfeild in the title role and Claudie Blakley as Lady Macbeth (both still well respected for stage and TV work, just not West or Simm). For director Evans, it doesn’t matter how bright the stars he casts – for him the play’s the thing.

“It is an extraordinary piece of work. On the one hand you have this couple who make a pact with each other to do something so terrible and there is something fascinating about the deal they make with each other. On the other hand it is a story that is anything but domestic, like say Othello, because it’s a story of regicide, a story that concerns the royal family,” says Evans.

“The play was written a year after the Gunpower Plot, so it was incredibly bold.

“For me the key is to treat this as a new play. Some of the actors have been in the play before, so we have to be careful and wary of underlying assumptions about what we think the play is about. We have to start at the beginning, with the text, and explore what it is saying.”

And as far as turning the stage into an in-the-round, Evans is excited at what it brings to the production.

“Having the audience on every side of the action means that everyone can see everyone and it becomes so much more intense,” he says.

“There is simply nowhere to hide.”