Shakespearean verse meets carefully choreographed physical performance in a visceral new production of Macbeth from theatre/dance directing duo Carrie Cracknell and Lucy Guerin, arriving at the Birmingham REP this month following its initial run at the Young Vic. John Heffernan stars as the ill-fated protagonist, alongside two-time BAFTA winner Anna Maxwell Martin.

What's On spoke to Maxwell Martin to talk about her interpretation of the iconic character of Lady Macbeth.

“The production is set in a modern world, with a set that looks a bit like a bunker,” says Maxwell Martin, “but I think the most important thing about it is the way it combines the text of the play with dance and movement - a kind of physical manifestation of what's happening in the story.”

The acting cast is supported by a small team of dancers offering a disturbing portrayal of the three witches, whose enigmatic prophecy inspires Macbeth to kill the King and take his crown.

“The play makes it hard to know whether the witches are a symptom of Macbeth's failing mind, or a supernatural force compelling him to act the way he does,” continues Anna. “They feature a lot in our production - however you read them, they're a constant presence in his mind, and they're represented in quite a scary, heightened way in these fleshy-coloured outfits. If you take them as something hallucinatory, then that's something that will fit in to any time or place: certainly mental health is as much a part of our world as it was a part of Shakespeare's.”

Physical training has not been exclusive to the professional dancers, with everyone coming together to practise as “one big group”. Of course, getting to grips with the choreography has been a challenge for the actors, but it's one that, for the most part, they've embraced.

“It's really new to me, and it was a bit scary at first, but I've loved it - I think the whole company has. Funnily enough, although I’ve been taking part in the dancing for weeks, I don't actually have to do any in the final production - it was probably all cut out because I was so bad!”

Fortunately, there's been one less thing to worry about than in some Macbeth productions: the superstitious tradition of avoiding the play's name around the theatre has been happily avoided.

“I'd forgotten all about that!” Anna exclaims. “None of us have been worrying about the superstitions, which is probably for the best!” Cracknell and Guerin's only previous collaboration was on the National Theatre's recent production of Medea, which met with huge critical acclaim. By transporting Euripides' tragic tale to a contemporary domestic setting, the duo created a claustrophobically intimate horror exploring the desperation that might drive a loving mother (played by a chillingly believable Helen McCrory) to kill her own children. There are obvious parallels with Macbeth, which also features at its heart a frustrated woman, driven to murderous extremes.

“There's always a difficulty in making those murderous figures believable in a domestic setting, and that’s something I struggled with. I try not to play her as a monstrous figure. There are a lot of different interpretations about what Lady Macbeth is driven by, so I've tried to find the humanity in her.”

Unlike Medea, driven to butcher her own offspring, this version of Lady Macbeth presents us with a woman who may have been left traumatised by a loss beyond her control.

“There's a long-running debate about references to a dead child in the play. Some productions have embraced that, but others feel that there isn't enough textual evidence to support that being a significant driving force. I think there probably is. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth talk about a child, and she talks about breast milk, which gives the impression that she understands the feeling of being a mother. That's something I’ve used, though not too heavily. There's a sort of hint towards the end, when she's sleepwalking, that perhaps there was a child at some point in their lives.”

Maxwell Martin initially rose to prominence for her performance as Philip Pullman's much-loved heroine Lyra in a six-hour stage adaptation of His Dark Materials. Yet despite this early evidence of her commanding stage presence and tremendous on-stage stamina, she says she feels more comfortable in front of a camera than treading the boards.

“I do find it difficult and I'm not sure theatre is my natural home, but I still always have a good time. I love being part of a company of actors, and I love exploring a play for four or six weeks or however long the rehearsal time is. But it's the parts that draw me back really. Whenever something by Chekhov or Shakespeare comes along, there’s an urge to take it. It's endlessly fascinating doing Shakespeare because if you analyse the text, it reveals lots of little jewels to you, sometimes even as you're speaking it during the run of a play. I never get bored doing Shakespeare.”

On screen, Maxwell Martin's two BAFTAs were received for her roles as Esther Summerton in the BBC's 2005 dramatisation of Bleak House, and as ‘N’ in Channel Four's Poppy Shakespeare. Fast building a reputation for her period performances, she’s also appeared in South Riding, The Night Watch, The Bletchley Circle and Death Comes To Pemberley. More recently, you might have seen her playing Mary Shelley in ITV's The Frankenstein Chronicles or Ethel Rogers in the Boxing Day broadcast of And Then There Were None. 

Anna Maxwell Martin stars in Macbeth at The REP, Birmingham from Tuesday 26 - Saturday 30 January.