'For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble, boil and bubble, boil and bubble," the witches howl as they move in a frenzy across the stage, their green rags alternating as dervish skirts and forest cover. They throw runes as they call upon darkness and conjure up a brew of murder, sex, witchcraft and regicide -- Shakespeare's tragedy, "Macbeth."
While some directors in the past have even cut the Bard's exponents of the black arts, the "Macbeth" that has just finished a three-week tour of Japan has been determinedly "witch-driven."
This production, staged by the award-winning TNT Theatre Britain, is undoubtedly a success. But when its director/TNT founder, Paul Stebbings, set out to interpret this classic, he was daunted by the task, worrying how audiences would react to any deviation from the standard, or even, "whether a younger audience would find it comprehensible."