"Blood will have blood," is the Hollywood-style slogan on the posters, and director Dominic Hill plays his most gory card first when John MacAulay's bleeding captain arrives on a stretcher from the battlefield. Nearly upstaged by his own wounds, the mutilated soldier is only one blow away from a bodybag.
He could be a victim of Iraq, Beslan or Darfur, so effectively does this modern-dress production remind us of the brutal circumstances of Macbeth's ascent. Such carnage, Hill suggests, is a perilous foundation on which to build a new regime.
By contrast, Paul Blair's Macbeth is as much politician as warrior. He strides on in his combat gear manfully enough, but there's something clean, almost cuddly about him, a restraint, a reflexiveness and a humanity that make him more than a mere killing machine. He is made formidable only in tandem with Irene Macdougall as a sort of First Lady Macbeth, a Hillary to his Bill, a Cherie to his Tony, a Mira to his Slobodan.
Played over a stately two-and-a-half hours, this is a careful psychological examination of two people on an empire-building adventure over which they are never fully in control. In private, they show all the sexual passion, companionship and vulnerability of a credible marriage. In public, they put on the polished professional face of the modern political celebrity.
When Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost, his wife is not so much alarmed as furious about how it will look. In a typically witty touch, she resolves the situation by leading her guests in a crockery-throwing session "as a thing of custom".
The production is rich in such detail, from Fleance enjoying a sly teenage drink to Macbeth growling out his own fate when he meets the baglady witches. Expertly enhanced by Jeanine Davies's shadow-throwing lighting and Anthea Haddow's ominous soundscape, it's a staging that makes chilling contemporary sense of the play, without reducing it to a simplistic metaphor.
· Until September 25. Box office: 01382 223530.
