Macbeth sacrifices some depth for thumping, Dune-like spectacle

Throughout this cinematic adaptation of Macbeth, the thumping of drums is a claustrophobic constant.

- Clement Yong

THEATRE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: MACBETH Singapore Repertory Theatre Fort Canning Park May 9

Against a set of over 200 rust-red columns, some rising to 14m, mammoth bird kites circle and swoop. Warriors in pantaloons kick up dust, fashioned from rubber mulch usually compacted into playground floors.

Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT), under the Fort Canning night sky, enthusiastically leans into a Dune-like spectacle with its biennial blockbuster. This is the Scottish play jacked with testosterone—heart-stirring, filled with some fantastic action choreography and the reverberating clangour of swords crossed, and blood liberally smeared onto hands and heads.

Directed by international award-winning director Guy Unsworth, Ghafir Akbar—who played Theseus and Oberon in SRT's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2023—is Macbeth, the newly elevated Thane of Cawdor.

His wife and infamous taunter of his masculinity is Julie Wee, as the determinedly vicious Lady Macbeth later racked by insomniacal hand-washing.

Daniel Jenkins once more brings the usual chameleonic ease with which he perfectly slips into the smaller roles as betrayed friend Banquo, spending much of his time as a walking ghoul.