Storyboarding and Direction by Al Seed and Judith Milligan

Choreography by Lina Limosani

Review by Dominic Corr

The Traverse Theatre

Three has long been held as a potent, talismanic digit in dramatic lore, yet when Al Seed Productions triples that famous number to summon nine performers onto a scorched, desolate stage, the result is an intoxicating exercise in post-tragedy reckoning. Conceived as a striking poetic response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Thrice casts its gaze past the tyrant’s downfall into the ruined, ash-laden landscape left in his wake. Storyboarded and directed with uncompromising vision by Al Seed and Judith Milligan, this physical theatre piece multiplies the iconic sisters threefold, reframing them not as agents of abstract malice, but in keeping with a prevalent theme in Scottish Theatre right now, as a Greek tragic chorus of survivors tasked with mourning, mending, and reclaiming a devastated realm from the ashes of corruption.

Visually and sonically, the production immediately plunges its audience into an eerie, hypnotic atmospheric dreamscape that honours its bleak thematic roots. Alberto Santos Bellido’s lighting slices through thick, billowing stage fog in long, solid shafts of acid-green, illuminating drab, rag-and-bone period costumes against a minimalist backdrop featuring a crumbling cairn of stones and an over-arching, scorched skeleton of a tree. Within this stark, industrial frame, Lina Limosani’s choreography emerges as an undeniable masterclass in physical synchronicity. The nine performers move with such chilling precision that they frequently dissolve into a single, multi-limbed entity, shifting seamlessly from rigid, militaristic formations into sweeping, courtly dances that evoke an ancient pagan ritual forced from the earth itself.

Guy Veale’s sound design underpins this visceral movement with a representational yet deeply unsettling pulse – weaving low, throbbing electronic hums with sudden, jarring bursts of birdsong and the performers’ own vocal incantations. Rather than delivering Shakespearean verse in conventional dramatic tones, the ensemble transforms lines originally spoken by male protagonists (Macduff, Banquo, and the man himself, Macbeth) into a haunting, collective chant of national grief. Yet, this intense abstraction cuts both ways; as the production pushes deeper into its later stages, the extended passages of repetitive movement and rhythmic chanting occasionally test the viewer’s stamina. This momentary dip in narrative momentum causes attention to drift as the action threatens to submerge itself entirely within hyper-stylised repetition before the overarching theatrical intent can fully reassert itself.

Fortunately, any fractures are swiftly hauled back by the sheer, unyielding commitment of the ensemble on stage. Their fearless physical execution and resonant vocal power rescue the pacing, turning abstract ritual into an empowering reclamation of a misunderstood historical archetype – reconnecting powerfully with Scotland’s dark legacy of historical witch trials and institutional misogyny. As the final, haunting notes of Veale’s soundscape fade and the stage dissolves back into mist, the production leaves behind an icy, lingering resonance that refuses to settle comfortably into past theatrical formulas. It is a bold, visually striking reminder that the most enduring echoes of a tragedy are found not in the tyrant’s fall, but in the resilience of those left behind to sweep up the dust.

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