Giving a defiant two fingers to theatrical superstition, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s boss Michael Boyd has chosen to direct Macbeth next month as the first all-new production at the company’s transformed Stratford base. In the meantime (until April 2), the magnificent new theatre, created in the shell of Elizabeth Scott’s 1932 building, is revisited by two productions first seen at the Courtyard Theatre last spring.

Though a double dose of tragedy, clocking in at a full-seven hours, might seem a challenge to daunt the hardiest critic, the performance last Thursday of King Lear (director David Farr) followed by Rupert Goold’s dark-hued take on Romeo and Juliet proved no hardship. Certainly, one applauds the comfort of the seating, even if some of the in-yer-face action permitted by the new thrust stage is often far from comforting.

I, for instance, was not looking forward to seeing the blinding of Gloucester (Geoffrey Freshwater) by Regan (Katy Stephens) and her odious husband Cornwall (Clarence Smith). In the event, a loitering soldier dead ahead of me spared me the sight. Such occasional masking is inevitably a consequence of the new arrangements.

In Romeo and Juliet came near-exposure (or so it seemed) to some of the flame, steam and flashing steel weaponry that Goold has applied to his thrillingly visual take on the play. As I noted last spring, here is a startling production in which the ongoing feud between the Montagues and the Capulets is presented as a visceral vendetta in which the fate of the star-cross’d couple is settled even as they meet. Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale continue to be most impressive as the pair, with fine comic turns to relieve the gloom from Noma Dumezweni as a pipe-smoking West Indian Nurse and Jonjo O’Neill as a garrulous Irish Mercutio.

As King Lear, the always hugely watchable Greg Hicks shows us a powerful, mighty-voiced monarch whose ruin is heartbreaking to witness. Having recently taken over from Kathryn Hunter as The Fool, Sophie Russell invests a pert charm into her performance.

Until April 2. Tickets: www.rsc.org.uk or 0844 8001110.