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Leeds PlayhouseEfforts to make Shakespeare accessible to all rub against confused staging and wayward delivery in Amy Leach’s ambitious productionCacophonous crashes signal the opening. Searching beams of light swivel from the tops of a seeming-forest of scaffolding towers, crisscrossing through “fog and filthy air”. Nicola T Chang’s music, Hayley Grindle’s design and Chris Davey’s lighting plunge us into an ear-ringingly rigid landscape, all hard edges and mechanistic structures, central to them a giant drawbridge ramp that, when raised, becomes a hanging platform, exalting those who pace it, threatening to crush those below. This is an effective evocation of Shakespeare’s fast-paced, bloody drama about civil strife, ambition and their deadly consequences. Presentationally, then, this Macbeth is attention-grabbing and atmospheric; in other respects, though, Amy Leach’s production comes across as muddled and unfinished.New material, spliced into the original, explores the Macbeths’ “journey to become parents”: a newborn son dies and is buried; Lady Macbeth, pregnant again, suffers a miscarriage. Aspects of this additional information are conveyed via action or gesture: as when Tachia Newall’s Macbeth kneels and places his ear against Lady Macbeth (Jessica Baglow)’s stomach. In relying so much on visuals, the company seems to go against its own aim of creating a performance that anyone with sight impairment will easily be able to follow.Macbeth is at Leeds Playhouse until 19 March Continue reading...