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Ayrton Khamsin TC lights “Macbeth” at London’s Donmar Warehouse

Max Webster’s production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, featuring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, opened at London’s Donmar Warehouse in December 2023. Played out on Rosanna Vize’s stark, minimalist set, comprising a flat white platform backed by a glass wall that isolates off-stage actors from the action, the audience listens through binaural headphones.

Lighting designer Bruno Poet (Sigur Rós, Pet Shop Boys) accentuates this intensity with the help of Ayrton Khamsin TC (True Colour) fixtures. “The simplicity of the set - the sharp-edged white platform contrasting heavily with the black surroundings - combined with the detail of the soundscape meant it wasn’t always necessary to see the actors’ faces fully”, he says. “This gave me a lot of freedom to use lighting in a very directional, sculptural way, and the Khamsin TCs were the key element in this.”

Poet used six Khamsin TCs in the overhead rig as his main workhorse fixtures. One Khamsin TC was rigged over each corner of the stage with a further two in upstage- and downstage centre positions. Most of the production takes place in either a crisp daylight white, mixed to match the 201 colour of the parcans Poet uses in other points of the rig, or a steely blue.

“The austerity of the look meant that colour really popped for the few moments I chose to use it, such as the apparitions scene which is deep monochrome red and the battle in steely green”, he says. “I was running the Khamsins at 30-40 percent throughout most of the show, which still left me somewhere to go for increased contrast and intensity whenever we needed it.”

The Khamsin TC fixtures were supplied by Neg Earth Lights. “Macbeth” runs at the Donmar Warehouse until 10 February 2024 and will be filmed for cinema broadcast later this year.

(Photos: Mark Brenner)

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