This incredibly ambitious play is styled as a sequel to Macbeth - a prospect to make Shakespeare purists shudder and novices yawn. In fact, Dunsinane is a tension-filled epic, a story about war and what comes after, an effortlessly engaging masterpiece with one foot in mythic history and one in the blood-soaked present. English troops have invaded Scotland and deposed a king they call “the tyrant”, but victory in war does not guarantee peace. As triumph stretches into occupation, the English and their luckless commander, Siward, find themselves trapped within Dunsinane castle, besieged by the hostile population of a land they do not understand. Siward is trapped between the corrupt ruler he installed and the widowed but popular Queen, clinging desperately to his honour as he wades ever-deeper into rivers of blood.
Although the publicity shouts about its Shakespearean connection, David Grieg’s script seems curiously shy of such references - Macbeth appears only beneath a shroud, his name never spoken, and his wife, Gruach, is not as dead, as mad or as barren as we might expect. However, as the evening progresses we realise that our expectations are being played with. Grieg’s clever and subtle script turns Gruach from a witchlike temptress into a scheming matriarch, slandered by superstitious soldiers. We have fallen for the Stuart propaganda of Shakespeare’s play as easily as the English have for the lies of their erstwhile Scottish allies - as easily as all invaders believe they'll be "welcomed as liberators".
Grieg’s taut writing masterfully evokes contemporary political issues without becoming dull allegory. The wild hills around Dunsinane are not Afghanistan, but they cast similar shadows of fear over their occupiers. Plundering soldiers, torture of prisoners, suicidal guerrillas, even “destroying the village in order to save it” - all have their echoes in Dunsinane’s Scotland.
From the action-packed opening as English soldiers storm the titular fortress, this play grabs your attention and never lets it slip. Tension, suspicion and deceit permeates every second of the production. The way the characters evolve as they trudge through the hostile bogs of Scotland is unpredictable, and fascinating.
Our sympathies can shift in a heartbeat between the English - so far from home, their frustration always on the verge of boiling over into excessive violence - and the Scots, calculating, cruel, and inscrutable, occupied but unbowed. Superb acting, brilliant staging and constant lashings of black humour combine to make this production as enjoyable as it is enthralling.