Theatre review: Lady M: His Fiend-Like Queen?, Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Boiling Shakespeare’s most exciting, gorily visceral play down to an hour of strutting and fretting upon the stage, this clipped but absorbing adaptation of the Scottish Play from Theatre Jezebel engages from the outset and never relinquishes its grip.

As a regular contributor to Oran Mor’s Classic Cuts season, director Mary McLuskey knows how to strip a well-kent tragedy back to its essential parts, while retaining the epic scale and sense of vaulting ambition.

The famous speeches remain largely intact, and despite the cast being reduced to just Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the witches, the guilt, butchery and uncanny machinations of the plot endure. Moreover, the deep love between the principals is satisfyingly foregrounded, rescuing the queen from harsher, less human interpretations, even as her costume resembles that of the three diabolical hags and Lesley Hart is forced to convey her descent into madness and death with even greater speed than usual.

Without others’ testimony to his soldiery and leadership, Michael Moreland can only grow belatedly into Macbeth. Afforded the false confidence born from the weird sisters’ later prophecies, though, and he’s commandingly impressive.

The reimagining of this pivotal scene, with his possession by spirits the witches call forth is wonderfully rendered, reinvesting it with real horror, with his perception of Banquo’s ghost also powerful.

Designer Kenny Miller’s dark, unforgiving, mirror-enclosed set deserves mention, perfect for presenting the foul deeds of murder and witchcraft and their psychological fallout.

Rating: ****