With Clapham Common on its doorstep, it must have seemed a smart move for London’s newest arts centre, Omnibus, to make use of it for this promenade revival of Macbeth. It’s surely the first time that the three witches have been discovered around a brazier in a drained paddling pool, or that news of treachery and advancement is received outside a set of disused public toilets.
It’s novel and atmospheric, but Macbeth is a play with a hurtling momentum: every time Gemma Kerr’s production moves from one location to another, the forward thrust of the drama is compromised. Passing buses and Saturday night revellers play havoc with the sound, and there’s little sense that we are in a war zone. For all the publicity about a site-responsive production, this Macbeth seems to have little urgent relevance to Clapham’s past and present – or, indeed, any urgency at all.
When the production does settle in one place at Omnibus – by way of discovering Lady Macbeth reading her husband’s letter on the fire escape – it’s no racier and the storytelling falls short. There’s a lack of logic, too, in the use of outside and inside spaces and the drama’s shifting locations, when the production suddenly dispenses with its promenade strategy.
This long evening is both plodding and jerky, and while there are actors with considerable experience here, performances lack depth, as if architecture rather than acting has been given more attention. There are hints of what these actors might achieve with more support: Jennifer Jackson brings an arresting contemporary edge to Lady Macbeth, and Gregory Finnegan’s Macbeth suggests a man who regrets what he’s done almost as soon as he has committed the first bloody deed, but who is caught in the web of his own making.
• Until 29 November. Venue: Omnibus, London. Box office: 020-7498 4699.
