A highly experimental Scottish play bloodies the Longacre Theater on Broadway. As the audience takes seats, cooks brew in pots (cauldrons) on a set that resembles a downtown city loft. Smoke blowers create a dreamy, sinister atmosphere. One actor, Michael Patrick Thornton, takes center stage, greeting the crowd, asking them to whisper the name of the play, Macbeth, to ourselves as if to expel the superstition attached to Shakespeare’s popular tragedy. This year brought us Joel Coen’s movie, Macbeth in abstract, in black & white, and this one contrasts in its specificity, red spots everywhere. Partly that’s owing to this Lady Macbeth, a dynamite Ruth Negga with sharply defined finger waves, a tiny frame, a bullet of a personality challenging her husband’s manhood. Would anyone doubt the potency of Daniel Craig as Macbeth? He’s a happy camper at the outset and as his life becomes more and more tarnished in blood: is it just a problem of laundry or just a change of expensive pajamas?

Out out brief spot. That’s a lot of blood, spurting from a man hoisted upside down, a pig releasing juices for an odd stew. Suttirat Larlarb’s costuming makes a splash. Craig is most stained, in white t-shirt, fur coat, brocade jacket, silk loungewear with armored vest. Negga dressed in a gold gossamer tiered gown, looking like Cleopatra, never has blood on her hands, but she’s busy scrubbing the floors. Till those woods encroach, –that’s always the opportunity for Macbeth’s greatest and most innovative dramatic spectacle.

 In Sam Gold’s inventive reimagining, casting included, Banquo is a woman’s performance. She wears cornrows shaped like a helmet, not her real hair as we saw after, running into Amber Gray on the windy West Side. Warriors they be, however styled. While you are amazed at Macbeth’s infinite possibilities as a play, how each re-creation brings a new understanding, the poetry coming from these fine actors sounds just right. For this Macbeth, you always know you are in the presence of superb actors. 

And that goes for the opening night crowd too: Craig’s wife Rachel Weisz, Candice Bergin, Oscar Isaac, Bryan Cranston, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lois Smith, Marisa Tomei, Bill Camp,