Macbeth
Almeida Theatre, London N1
In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth speaks more than a third of the lines. What he doesn't speak seems to emanate from his consciousness. Thus, director Travis Preston justifies the premise of this riveting production, the best since the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench version, and made so by the brilliance with which the solo actor, Stephen Dillane, conveys the mounting horror.
This production, which Dillane and Preston devised with an onstage, atmosphere-enhancing jazz trio in Los Angeles, justifies Harold Bloom's assertion that Shakespeare's most internalised drama is played out 'in the guilty imagination that we share with Macbeth'.
So Dillane - tall, gaunt, stricken, grey-suited on an earthen battlefield, backed by a white wall of his own flickering shadows - allows the play to unravel through him. The imaginary dagger is as unreal as the one he clutches. Lady Macbeth exists on the edge of his lapels. A blind King Duncan, a stammering Malcolm, a bass Macduff, a pelvic-thrusting porter: all emerge in the greyness of his obsessive projection of them. A stunning performance that should be seen far beyond the sadly short visit to the Almeida last week.
