The Ceaucescu-era Romanian setting is genius for this play. Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood are perfection. And the choice to make the Weird Sisters Nurse/Servants so that they linger around MacBeth in various locations to torment him is brilliantly effective: they make perfect sense silently moving about the banquet table pouring wine and serving blood red soup, or chopping up animals in the kitchen.
The post-industrial Soviet-era settings and de-natured color make the whole production give it a chaustrophobic doom. For my money, no one can manage the jump from haunted murderer better than Stewart. Macbeth is easy to bellow or chop up to make each gorgeous line more dramatic, but his simplicity and gravitas make it entirely believable he can be both the murderer and the haunted man.
The post-industrial Soviet-era settings and de-natured color make the whole production give it a chaustrophobic doom. For my money, no one can manage the jump from haunted murderer better than Stewart. Macbeth is easy to bellow or chop up to make each gorgeous line more dramatic, but his simplicity and gravitas make it entirely believable he can be both the murderer and the haunted man.