Zinnie Harris reinvents Lady Macbeth as a flawed feminist icon in this respectful but masterfully reimagined adaptation
“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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As the play progresses, Harris’ text shifts Shakespeare’s around and jigsaws it back together, filling the gaps with suitably Shakespearean gravity, but also with knowing humour and a dream-like awareness on Lady Macbeth’s part that she is a character in a play. At one point, she refers to its cursed nature.
Cooper has received much acclaim in Scotland for her Shakespearean work at Glasgow’s outdoor Bard in the Botanics, and this outstanding performance feels like her high watermark. Her Lady Macbeth is regal yet vulnerable, driven by love, personal ambition and, ultimately, desperation. Haunted by her miscarriages, she holds things together for her husband, yet takes the blame when they go wrong.
The other half of the play is not Macbeth, but Jade Ogugua’s Lady Macduff, a pregnant cousin to Lady Macbeth who is loved like a sister, and who juggles marriage to the absent Macduff (Paul Tinto) and a passionate affair with Banquo (James Robinson).
The part is expertly and convincingly built up by Harris, and breakdown and betrayal between these almost-siblings hurts like nothing else here.
Tom Piper’s set is intentionally austere (a good joke is worked in about theatre funding), reflecting the stark clarity of Harris’ text, with black walls closing in around the cast and blood flowing from every body and spigot. It’s all masterfully traditional and refreshingly new.
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