The Bard’s most concise and violent tragedy gets a softly-softly reading in this Bell Shakespeare production helmed by the company’s Artistic Director Peter Evans.

Hazem Shammas and Jessica Tovey in Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Photo © Brett Boardman

A vague sense of period (1920s-1930s?) is suggested in designer Anna Tregloan’s costuming. A sense of place is more difficult to divine with the world of the play defined by towering green drapes and those furry floor tiles one associates with airport lounges.

There are some ornate dining chairs, but no table. Lamps and side-tables have something of an 1980s hotel lobby vibe to them. Above is mounted a ring of spotlights from which, at key moments, blasts of stage haze are released, creating the odd effect (in cahoots with Max Lyandvert’s sound design) of a spaceship landing.

The production seems a lifeless one at first, an impression exacerbated by flat readings of speeches that should be immediately gripping. Rearing up from the floor with a gasp, Kyle Morrison’s Bleeding Captain delivers his battle report without the sense of him being an eyewitness to its horror and triumph. The youthful three Witches (Rebecca Attanasio, Isabel...