Lady MacBreast

After a performance of the utterly hilarious Lady MacBreast, a very experienced and fine actor remarked to Kimberly Twiner, ‘You did the whole play!’    

Well, yes, Lady MacBreast does do the whole play.  But not quite as Shakespeare wrote it.  With the physical comedy, mime, sharp observation, Bouffon and satire we expect from PO PO MO CO, Lady MacBreast rips away all the poetry, grandiloquence, rhetoric, complexity of character, majesty and tragedy. 

Instead, we get ‘obscenity’ and fart jokes; the Witches are fun-loving sister hags, Macbeth himself is no more than a credulous, greedy, dim-witted opportunist; Banquo is a wide-eyed but thinks-he’s-cunning naif; Lady Macbeth is a towering creature with not two but six breasts (she’s ‘given suck’ all right); Duncan is a senile and incomprehensible, doddering old codger… and so on.  What is exposed is stupidity, lust, filth and the grubby motives that really drive the plot – or this version of it.  The Companion is sure that Shakespeare would love it.  Perhaps.

All is achieved with unrelenting pace and panache by a breathtakingly talented cast of four – all of whom play multiple roles.  They have chosen to perform close to naked most of the time and bare breasted all of the time - and they are aided in their inspired clowning by some simple but inventive costume and wig changes. 

Horses are mounted and ridden off with appropriate noises.  Animal cries inhabit the Heath.  The Murderers are slinky acrobats in bondage gear.  All these warriors finger and sniff at each other’s, er, sporrans.  The Witches deliver their prophecies via their cloacae.  The term ‘suck-arse’ takes on literal meaning.  Prince Malcolm’s vices are physically disgusting - far, far worse than the mild indiscretions of the original.  But loyal, well, ambitious Macduff swallows hard (literally) and accepts them…  That particular scene, brilliantly performed by Lily Fish as Malcolm and Phoebe Mason as Macduff, is indeed a fine indicator of what this show is all about.  

But throughout all the performers keep strictly and consistently to their characters’ own narrative line - and to the show’s rigorously developed underlying intention.  The idea is not to take the mickey out of Shakespeare per se.  Shakespeare’s play provides the structure for a sharp – in fact, biting – satire on Men.  (Hence the naked performers.)  Some people may not notice this at the time because they are too busy laughing – indeed most are laughing without pause the whole length of the show.  But the self-aware Bouffon style makes intentions very clear.  Kimberly Twiner’s Macbeth strides across the stage with domineering and totally unconvincing swagger.  No one does credulous naiveté better than Phoebe Mason.  Haillie Goodman shows how pathetically easy it is to fool and manipulate men.  Lily Fish winks at the audience, signalling ‘How clever am I, eh?’  When we know that her character is anything but. 

It is difficult to do justice to this inspired, carefully thought-through and impeccably performed farce in which the clowning is world class.  What might appear chaotic has been tightly and precisely directed by Twiner and Fish – with input from Rinske Ginsberg.  Bronwyn Pringle’s lighting enhances without ever distracting.  And Moses Carr’s sound design has its own edge of mockery.

The program notes describe the show as ‘camp, anarchic and wildly puerile’.  Well, yes, true.  But it’s a lot more than that.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Darren Gill