Shakespeare plays are so often used as modern jumping-off points for reinterpretation that it’s amazing to come across yet another take.
Earlier this year Macbeth (an Undoing) at the Malthouse deconstructed the play very intelligently, leaving the audience with new ways of thinking about the play while keeping its darkness intact.
Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence is the latest and possibly the funniest interpretation I’ve seen so far.
Crash Theatre Company’s production – which opened last night at Melbourne Fringe – is huge fun from go to whoa. Set in a Year 12 netball team’s hothouse lead-up to the finals with competitors Birnam Owls, Mac Beth (Orla Poole) is the team’s Wing Defence, whose overweening ambition to be captain drives the action. She white-ants, injures, betrays and double deals her way in her quest for supremacy, and survives in the penalty corner, unlike Shakespeare’s anti-hero who meets a stickier end.
Did I mention it’s a musical?
It’s not the first time composers have played with the Macbeth tale of ruthless ambition – Shostakovich took the idea of Lady M’s killer instincts in his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Macbeth the Contemporary Rock Opera, written by Queenslanders Clarry Evans and Judy Stevens, followed the original more closely with some great music; and Oxford University Light Entertainment Society’s offering in Michaelmas Term 2022 is on my afternoon’s watching list.
The cast and production crew have doubled up in the responsibilities: music is composed by Bec Price, who also directed, with the script written by Courtney McManus, who plays Coach Duncan. Ana Ferreira Manhoso, one-third of the play’s lyric writers, is onstage as Mia the hotshot Latina, while choreographer Shannon Rogers plays Chloe Macduff. The pace never flags.
There are plenty of cleverly-used quotes woven through – often in unexpected, absurd places – to the amusement of the audience, who got just about every reference from the original, when this reviewer attended.
The cast of eight strong performers from WA are all excellent – they sing, they dance, they are a wonderfully distinct group of characters – the ditz Brooke Ross (a very funny Georgia McGivern), the faithful friend Summer Banquo (Kate Sisley, a stand-out singer in an already strong group), Coach Duncan (Courtney McManus, reliving past almost-glories), last-minute ring-in Mia (Ana Ferreira Manhoso, all earrings and Latina chutzpah, to mix a cultural metaphor), Jess Malcolm (Gabriella Munro, dancing up a storm, and who is also one of the three Dagger Divas witches, weaving spells and sporting some seriously tacky nightclub satin and fringing) and Ashley Donalbain (Emily Semple, who has a nice line in eye-rolling underwhelm and deadpan).
The one tiny quibble is the sound quality – some of the language gets lost, and possibly more laughs and detail.
Read: Theatre review: Classifried! The MKUltra Sitcom, The Butterfly Club
Overall, an exhilarating night of energy, wit and intelligent silliness. And no one dies, unlike the original. It is a musical after all.
See it if you can get in.
Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence, Crash Theatre
Trades Hall
Director and Music Composer: Bec Price
Script Writer: Courtney McManus
Lyricists: Bec Price, Courtney McManus, Ana Ferreira Manhoso
Choreographer: Shannon Rogers
Stage Manager and Operations: Ella Cooke
Creative producer: Ana Ferreira Manhoso
Cast: Orla Poole, Kate Sisley, Courtney McManus, Ana Ferriera Manhoso, Gabriella Munro, Shannon Rogers, Emily Semple, Georgia McGivern
Tickets: $34
Lady Macbeth Played Winged Defence will be performed until 4 October as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
