Is Macbeth Shakespeare's unacknowledged gunpowder play? Derby Playhouse presents an intriguing reminder that among those convicted for plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament was the radical Jesuit Henry Garnet, author of A Treatise on Equivocation. When Shakespeare's most equivocal tragedy took the stage a year later, would audiences have perceived the diabolic chaos as an example of what might have happened had the gunpowder plot succeeded?
It certainly helps to explain why Karen Louise Hebden's production has such an explosive beginning. The air suddenly cleaves to a violent peal of thunder, revealing the weird sisters dancing around fringes of flames licking up through the stage. Pyrotechnically, it's pretty impressive: you won't experience a bigger bang this side of Guy Fawkes' night.
Happily, Hebden chooses not to push the conspiratorial parallels too far, treating the Scottish play not as a euphemism but a statement of fact. Rugged tartans and gruff Highland accents are much in evidence. Rosie Alabaster's design has the cold grandeur of ancient standing stones, and when Stephen Finegold's Banquo observes that "this castle has a pleasant seat" you can just picture a wan sun briefly illuminating the heather.
The Macbeths emerge as a particularly highly-strung couple. From the outset, Brian Protheroe is a thane whose sanity seems seriously open to question - each soliloquy taking him a step closer to a complete nervous breakdown. As his wife, Aoife McMahon sets an even higher emotional high wire act, her doll-like, porcelain features seeming increasingly vulnerable in the event of a fall.
One slight cavil - while it's great to see large casts back on Derby's stage, the last few productions have been so under lit that one wonders if it's a bid to pay the actors by cutting down on electricity. Yet however murky the context, Hebden's perceptive and thoughtful treatment remains truly illuminating.
· Until October 22. Box office: 01332 363275.
