Macbeth

The Abbey Theatre

With its opening words spat out in Irish from the mouths of witches, its costumes passingly referring to brutal Cromwellian forces, and the Porter's in-jokes now updated to castigate bankers, priests and politicians, the Abbey Theatre's latest Shakespeare production strains to bring Macbethhome to us.

Putting the Scottish play entirely into an Irish context, however, would be a transposition as awkward as re-anointing Macbeth the thane of Glendalough or bringing Birnam Wood to Dundalk. Though Jimmy Fay's production floats in Irish signifiers, the text still leaves us in Scotland. Like the strange ever-present spectre of a pig's head on a pike, planted on the heath early by the witches as though borrowed from Lord of the Flies, such gestures seem indecisive and unconvinced – much like the conflicted Macbeth.

As the once worthy thane, whose vaulting ambition for power is fed by toxic influence and brutal encouragement, Aidan Kelly takes a while to screw his courage to the role. Considering the murder of John Kavanagh’s Duncan, his early soliloquies are delivered as open-palmed explanations of a dilemma to the audience, rather than the tormented conscience of a man fully aware of the consequences. Kelly’s portrayal deepens with Macbeth’s slide into paranoia, restless on his creaking throne, haunted by the ghosts of the betrayed, distanced from his co-conspirator, Eileen Walsh’s Lady Macbeth. With her cropped hair dyed acid blonde, Walsh certainly looks striking, yet her performance also tends towards the illustrative, limpid and clear but advancing no strong interpretation of the role. Lady Macbeth’s steely determination, pleading with spirits to “unsex me here” is physicalised with an orgasmic energy of dark desire, yet its verve is sapped by the shallow playing space of Paul O’Mahony’s low two-tiered set where Paul Keogan’s lights splinter in from the wings through an oppressive smoky gloom. That claustrophobia may mirror a barricaded mindset, but here it makes a lean and mean play feel oddly enervated. Later attempts to jolt it back to life come with abrupt lurches in tone, from ironic music cues to cumbersome shadow play and suddenly introduced surreal imagery. None of it quite coheres, the aesthetic choices – animal heads and silhouette sword fights – jumbled together like arbitrary ingredients in the witches’ cauldron.

Some elements provide more definition; Kelly and Walsh find a gruesome comedy in the despotic and demonic banquet scene, Karl Shiels gives real feeling to his Macduff, and Ronan Leahy follows the clearest character arc, from gauche inexperience to filial avenger as honourable Malcolm.

Meanwhile, as morality becomes ever more contaminated, Phil Kingston moves through scenes with quiet menace, the devilish assurance of a character named Seyton.

There are plenty of readings possible in Shakespeare's play, a tale full of sound and fury signifying potentially anything. But here the political, historical, sexual and psychological themes seem conflicted, all present but unguided, jangling together like wind chimes. Irish details are grafted upon the Scottish play by the English bard, and the context, the character and any compelling reason for the play's staging become hard to locate. This Macbethfeels ultimately neither here nor there.

Until May 15