Just A Quickie with...York Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden.

Damian, it's surprising to learn this is your first go at Shakespeare's "Scottish Play".

"What, because I'm Scottish?! I know that when John Doyle did it here last time it was done 'Scottish' but though it's clearly set in Scotland, that's not my main interest in the play. As a Scotsman, there's so little in it that makes it specifically Scottish. It doesn't have Scottish dialogue; it's not littered with Scottish references; it just so happens that it has a veneer of 'Scottishness' placed on it because of the political time in which it was written.

"It was written for James I of England, James VI of Scotland, whose parents were both assassinated. James had a fascination with the supernatural, and he believed very strongly in the god-given right of kings to rule. In trying to maintain that, the paranoia of the king was inevitable."

What will be your focus in your production?

"I've asked playwright Richard Hurford to edit the text down and focus on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship, so we've cut the long English scene to the minimum. It's there to show what happens when trust goes out the window and natural order is disturbed, and all the politics of the play are packed into that one scene.

"Even in normal playing conditions, the play is very rapid and pretty relentless: there's a sense that Macbeth is caught and trapped, whereas in Othello you feel you could get up and shout 'Stop, you don't have to do that'. Hamlet has lots of options too but Macbeth has disaster written all over it from the start."

Why do Japanese culture and puppetry feature in your production?

"When I was talking with fight director Richard Ryan about the fight sequences, we were thinking of doing a really bloody, gory version. He was working on the film Troy at the time and we were looking at how we could bring in some of those fighting techniques. Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill had just come out and I'd been to Japan, so I was thinking about the cartoon element of Kill Bill and Manga, and films like The Seven Samurai. The puppets came about from Japanese culture too, and I've asked John Barbour to design large-scale puppets for the witches and Banquo's ghost. I'm not setting the play in Japan, but it has a Japanese feel to it with Samurai swords and clothes cut in the Samurai style - and no tartan!"

As well as directing the show, you have designed it too. How come?

"It makes it a different challenge for me. I'd gone a long way down the road of knowing what I wanted the design to be, and I could have got someone in to do it the way I wanted, but it made sense for me to do it myself. I knew I wanted puppets, I knew I wanted 15 tons of black sand for the floor...it looks stunning."

Macbeth, York Theatre Royal, Monday to March 19. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 16:28 Thursday, February 24, 2005