Riders to the Sea / Macbeth review – intense double bill linked by elemental forces of nature

The Guardian

20-07-2025

Marking 50 years of exceptional theatre-making, Druid Theatre Company presents a double bill showcasing the artistry of this tight-knit ensemble and the excavatory lens of its artistic director, Garry Hynes. With a wealth of past productions to choose from, Hynes has paired JM Synge's stark one-act tragedy, Riders to the Sea, with Macbeth.
While Synge's distilled miniature is almost eclipsed by what follows, the plays are linked by a focus on the elemental forces of nature and the shadow of death, with small, telling moments of visual continuity between them. In Synge's play, a grieving mother (Marie Mullen) has a premonition of the death at sea of her last surviving son (Marty Rea). The keening women and black-cloaked villagers' laments are later echoed in the guttural cries of the weird sisters, hooded figures from folk horror, who accost Macbeth (Rea) and Banquo (Rory Nolan) on the blasted heath.
In both plays the veneer of Christianity is flimsy, while older, primal beliefs and fears hold sway. A statue of the crucified Christ is suspended on the back wall, not high enough to be safe from the predations of Rea's electrifying Macbeth, while a banquet becomes a twisted Last Supper where glasses are filled with blood-tainted water rather than wine.
Mullen's compelling Lady Macbeth is transformed from her husband's goading, bullying accomplice into a wreck, terrified of his rampaging. While the age-gap between the two actors adds another layer to this relationship, at times closer to mother and son like Volumnia and Coriolanus, it is also completely credible.
With the superb cast of 11 making darting entrances through hidden flaps in the walls of designer Francis O'Connor's stripped wooden set, the pace is unflagging, the menace unrelenting. For the audience seated on three sides, intensity is heightened by proximity to the performers.
'O full of scorpions is my mind,' Rea spits out, as Macbeth's mind and spirit curdle into something monstrous: bloodthirsty and unhinged. This is a medieval world, with shadowy forces and omens, candlelight and mud-covered floors, yet its portrayal of tyranny and the speed with which all civility falls away feels anything but remote.
At Galway international arts festival until 26 July; then at Gaiety theatre, Dublin, for Dublin theatre festival, 25 September to 5 October