BWW Reviews: MACBETH, Greenwich Playhouse, April 9 2011

With revolt, even regicide, rippling in today's Africa, CandyKing Theatre and Celtic Kiss' production of Macbeth (at the Greenwich Playhouse until May 1) is a timely reminder that political ruthlessness, like the works of Shakespeare, respects no borders, whether of space or time. With heads on spikes and the drums of war beating in the ancient air of the Benin Empire, the production opens with a war dance so close, so loud and so intimidating that the audience is left in no doubt that violence will crackle all around them for the next two hours. And it does.

As Macbeth, Segun Akingbola's dizzying descent to compulsive murder is played out in a frenzy of fear, provoked by the Ghost of Banquo's accusing finger. Supported by a cast who convince as warriors and speak their lines in more measured tones than the occasionally hysterically screaming protagonist, Akingbola plays Macbeth as a weak man, unable to deal with his destiny nor his wife. In repose, Diana Walker's Lady Macbeth has the mien of a Nubian queen, but, preying on her husband's growing ambition and eventually understanding her role in provoking such carnage, that face is soon a blank and her long, regal physique becomes merely the means by which she compulsively washes her hands in a futile attempt to cleanse them of the blood in which they have (indirectly) bathed. Ms Walker's subtle performance is all the more terrifying for its initial coolness and its later quiet inward violence, while all around knives flash, wounds open and even babies are slaughtered as a result of the chaos she has let loose.

Scott le Crass' production suits is small space well, the proximity of audience and actors adding a visceral quality to a play as uncompromising in its misanthropy now as when it was first reported to have been performed exactly 400 years ago this month. At times gruelling to watch in its relentless torturing of its characters' bodies and minds, the lessons the play teaches have been learned and re-learned many times in those four centuries past, with little sign that the next four centuries will see anything different. Actors may consider Macbeth cursed, but it isn't - it's we who are cursed by finding so many political leaders who still pay little heed to the fate of the men and women those actors bring to life... and death.