The multi-award winning Mark Bruce Company will tour their haunting new dance/theatre re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth this spring.

With direction and choreography by visionary artistic director Mark Bruce, a cast of nine performers and dramatic design by the same creative team behind Dracula and The Odyssey, the company will portray a beautifully harrowing vision of an internal wasteland formed from the pursuit of power through ruthless means.

Drama, dance and film audiences will be drawn to Bruce's imaginative vision of the treacherous Macbeth's toxic world of jealousy, ambition and corruption. Set in a supernatural and brutal underworld, both tragic and beautiful, with a horror film atmosphere of menace and murder.

Artistic Director Mark Bruce said: “Macbeth hits you fast, cuts through to the bone, and for me it is the least ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays. Its darkness opens our nightmares; we recognise fundamental traits inside ourselves and the consequences of acting upon them. The vicious pursuit of power to fill a void will always be relevant - the Macbeths are everywhere in every age, because they are a part of us.

“I first read Macbeth as a teenager and returning to it now the images, atmosphere it evokes have not changed. Its power lies in a relentless tale of supernatural horror told with a beauty and symbolism that reaches to the tragic state of the ‘other’. The supernatural is always present in Macbeth, bending our own thoughts and perceptions as well as those of the protagonists. It infects us, always one step ahead, and Macbeth’s decisions are made in the world of a nightmare as if there is no separation between thought and action. Murder is done and descent is rapid.

“The Macbeths are mere playthings of the evil they set free, and in the madness and emptiness that ensues they become but walking shadows, or, as in my adaptation, simply clowns of sound and fury.”

Mark Bruce Company has built up a formidable reputation for uncompromising dance-theatre work.

In 2014 Dracula scooped four major awards: the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Best Dance Production Critics’ Circle Award Dance Section for Best Independent Company , Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer (Modern) – Jonathan Goddard for ‘Dracula’, Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dance – Jonathan Goddard for Mark Bruce Company Mark co-devised Skellig (2008), an opera based on the book by David Almond, for the Sage Gateshead; the Royal Exchange Theatre’s productions of The Bacchae, Antigone, The Glass Menagerie, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Antony & Cleopatra, Peer Gynt, As You Like It, Fast Food, Still Time and The Way of the World. He directed Rick Bland’s award-winning Thick which toured the UK, US and Canada and in 2015 worked with Singapore Repertory Theatre on their production of The Tempest.

Mark has also worked in a variety of new media, screen and interactive stage productions with Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli of Igloo. He has written music for his own work and for art installations and is published by Mute Song. His book of short stories, Blackout Zones was released in May 2010. Mark is currently completing his book on Choreography and Making Dance Theatre.

Macbeth comes to Salisbury Playhouse from May 10th-12th , For more details visit www.salisburyplayhouse.com