Macbeth (An Undoing) review

“This story will be told the way it has always been told,” spits Liz Kettle’s Carlin, the first of the three of Macbeth’s hags on the heath to be glimpsed. “What use is it otherwise?”

Her words are a promise to those who fear a version of ’the Scottish play’ so cavalier in its novelty that it rips the heart out of it, but also a threat to an unseen assistant at the back of the stalls, declaring that these characters won’t submit willingly to a simple, by-rote performance of a classic.

Writer and director Zinnie Harris has regularly reminagined well-known plays to accentuate the female narratives at their heart. They all feel as though they’ve been building to this – one of the most famous roles for a woman in one of the most famous plays in theatre.

Adam Best and Nicole Cooper are the power couple at the heart of the drama, the lord and lady scheming to surreptitiously murder King Duncan (Marc Mackinnon) during his one night as a guest in their castle and install Macbeth on the throne.

Their story begins conventionally – sticking to Shakespeare’s text and intention – with Best’s bold alpha Macbeth taking the lead after the witches’ prophecy promises he will be king, and Cooper’s Lady Macbeth reassuring him in his moment of doubt.

Yet once he has committed the crime, it’s not his wife who has a breakdown through guilt and retreats from view, but Macbeth himself. His bloodthirsty thanes sense weakness, leaving Lady Macbeth to try to hold their house, and Scotland itself, together.

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