There's nothing wrong with John Woods' revival of Macbeth; it just lives up to the reputation of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play" (theater folk superstitiously don't like to even say its title) as impossible to play successfully. I've seen at least a dozen Macbeths. Some were great productions, some had a great Macbeth, some had a great Lady Macbeth -- and none with even two of the above.
Woods' direction is workmanlike and unremarkable, except for Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene in which I felt sorry for Lucy Peacock. She had to try to make sense of such peculiarly stylized business as constant dithering of her hands and slowly wrapping herself in a floor cloth.
John Ferguson's designs are appropriately dark and drab, though it would seem to make more sense to highlight Ms. Peacock's beauty as Lady Macbeth than Graham Abbey's nice chest as Macbeth. John Stead's fights are unusually excitingly staged. Otherwise, this solid production is entirely well handled but without the artists' covering themselves with glory, except for Stead and Gil Wechsler, whose lighting is the play's strongest element.
