Review: Macbeth

The artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, Daniel Evans, really does have some eye for the big stage.

It would be possible to be intimidated by a stage as epic as the famous Sheffield Crucible, but in his production of Macbeth, Evans grapples with it, forces it to change its shape and creates a series of triumphant tableaux that bring the arena thrilingly to life. The thrust stage has been reconfigured by Evans and it has become an in-the-round. Now we surround the action. It makes for a visceral and immediate Macbeth that at once pulls you right in for those intimate moments where regicide is plotted, while at the same time pushes you back to allow the enormity of the battle scenes to sweep over.

It is a seriously impressive piece of stagecraft from the director who, with this piece, has demonstrated an eye for knowing exactly how the Crucible stage is best shown off. At times you could be watching a sumptuously lit film of the production.

Shakespeare’s Scottish play is at its heart an intimate story in which a husband and wife plot murder. What makes it sweeping and epic is that the murder is regicide and will see Macbeth installed as king.

In the title role Geoffrey Streatfeild is interesting. Not enormously powerful, here he is not a driven man but a troubled one. The feast where Banquo’s ghost appears reveals a seriously disturbed mind and it is compelling. So too Claudie Blakley, whose ambition as Lady Macbeth is never particularly apparent, but who plays the troubled queen brilliantly. Their descent into apparent madness is enthralling.