There has been much talk in recent weeks about the RSC’s production of Macbeth, but turn your glance to the silver screen (and streaming platforms) and you’ll find that Shakespeare’s most abject analysis of greed, ambition, and lust for power, is wowing select audiences around the UK.
Directed by Kit Monkman and starring Mark Rowley as Macbeth, Akiya Henry as Lady Macbeth and Al Weaver as Banquo, this is a stunning movie that mixes the traditional approach with a rich visual language, a tapestry of of vividly imagined locations presented as CGI set dressing for the story to unfold against.
The movie summary is as follows:
“Brilliant young general Macbeth pulls off a glorious victory in battle before returning to an indolent court where honours are dispensed by whim. Spurred on by prophesying drifters and an ambitious wife, Macbeth sets his sights on the throne. In Kit Monkman’s adventurous new adaptation, this compelling tale of unchecked ambition, soured friendship, lost intimacy and the descent into nihilism is encountered in a strange and claustrophobic territory partly conjured by the mind.”
To find out more about the movie and its ambitious use of green screen, Christian Cawley spoke to Kit Monkman.