Macbeth, The Q and Lakespeare, The B (and Aunty Louise Brown Park in better weather), 12-16 Feb (and various other locations til March 2)

 After 4 comedies and one history, Lakespeare takes one of the tragedies outdoors (or, in the case of bad weather, indoors under blanket lighting). It's Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, a fast-moving trip through prophecies, regicide, and revenge,  and director Jordan Best delivers a brisk, immediate production focussed on using the cast as an ensemble (all except Isaac Reilly as the titular Macbeth appears in other roles). It's a different production to her last go at the play 9 years ago, but gains in immediacy and in-your-faceness what it may lose in sharp lighting effects and other subtle niceties There's rich power in the production from the initial entrances of the three witches, all dressed as a cross between Goths and Miss Havisham in veils, moving like the otherworldly monsters they are in Gaia La Penna's costumes,  through the personal and political machinations and brutal ramifications of the lust to gain and keep political power, to the final desperate battles against fate. 

Leading the company is Isaac Reilly in the title role - a fascinating study of a strong man undone by his desires, as he loses first his comfortable marital intimacy then everyone around him, you can see the self-delusion that prophecy will protect him right up until it becomes clear it's been misleading him - his increasing isolation and paranoia creating the fate he's been trying to avoid. Lainie Hart has the pure directness of Lady Macbeth, driving her husband to murder then seeing the wedge it forms between them and the guilt it creates within her - there was a moment when she reached out towards me in the audience saying "Give me your hand" and it was difficult not to snap the fourth wall open. 

Elswhere in the cast, Caitlin Baker is boyish enthusiasm as Malcolm, Lachlan Ruffy gives soulful reflection as Banquo before everything comes undone for him (and is a suitably disturbing ghost), Max Gambale has regal poise as Duncan, Paul Sweeney's Macduff is rage and sorrow and grim determination incarnate, Annabelle Hansen's Lady Macduff is wounded pride not quite believing how quickly fate is going to destroy her, and the ensemble in general speaks clearly and true embodying the various characters in the text. 

I must admit sitting on a thin picnic matt on hardwood floors was probably not the best personal choice for my body, though the team also offers picnic chairs if you don't feel like being that close to the ground, and it's probably the superior choice for those with aging bones. But for anybody looking for up-close, personal, impactful shakespeare, this is absolutely recommended.