Lady Macbeth
The Mercury
Fri 16 March
Season Closed



Those looking for a Fringe show that doesn't draw attraction from facial things like physical dysfunction, exaggerated colour, or sexual anxiety need look no further than Egiku Hanayagi's fine, refreshingly understated dance interpretation of Shakespeare's pillar of feminine evil 'Lady Macbeth'.

Hanayagi and supporting performer Kumiko Takayama work with a minimal apparatus - a bunch of roses, a fan, a small blade, their kimonos - which suggest some of the more visceral images and feelings of the play and the character. Through the elegant and repetitive motioning of these objects the audience is eased into a general quasi-hypnotic state, which is intermittently perforated by (relative) bursts of energy and, in particular, the spine-tingling piercing of some sort of cushioning by strange bladed flowers.

Shakespeare's basic juxtaposition of external physical beauty with internal malevolence in Lady Macbeth is especially effectively adapted. Both characteristics are channelled in Hanayagi's stunningly measured movement, at once superficially attractive and coldly distant.

It's all rather discreet, but certainly not without energy. It's just that the energy is evoked in the consciousness of the viewer rather than being played out on the stage in the usual fashion. So those prepared to concentrate will find it a rather exciting and sometimes disturbing little mind-body trip.

Wil McGinley