<b>Review</b> Macbeth

10 April 2012

What a powerful challenge Greg Hicks lays down to the traditional notion of Macbeth as a butch warrior, obsessed by longings for top-man status. Hicks makes a virtue of his slender, athletic physique, confidently exploiting a voice and face that register high-degree anxiety to suggest a Macbeth who is prey to his imaginings. How convincingly Hicks weakens as he surrenders to his conscience and his wife - Banquo's ghost even has him leaping atop the banquet table and collapsing in its midst.

This Macbeth seems ominously tentative when first appearing on Robert Innes Hopkins's unevocative stage set. The predictions of the witches so impact on him that he edges towards Richard Cordery's virile King anticipating royal favours. Sadly, though, Hicks's Macbeth is enclosed in a low-definition, cool and antiseptic production by Dominic Cooke, which lacks any governing concept or fresh insights.

The military coats, Macbeth's dressing gown and vest, and his wife's pink party dress, stole and choker are vaguely Edwardian. The fine vehemence and vigour of Pal Aron's Malcolm, Louis Hilyer's Banquo and Clive Wood's Macduff function in a void. Relations between the middle-aged Macbeths seem sex-lite.

Sian Thomas's disappointing Lady Macbeth is less the murderous goader than an edgy wife, hostess and fashion victim who keeps up appearances. The production's best idea is to portray the witches as controlling agents, who burst from under the banquet table, appal Hicks's superbly stricken Macbeth with holographic apparitions and appear to gloat over his corpse.

Phone theatre for performance details and London transfer dates. Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwicks (0870 609 1110)

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