Presented by Shit-FacedShakespeare®
Producing Direction by Brett Milanowski
Directed by Rev. Lewis Ironside
Featuring: Olivia Dumaine, Turner Frankosky, Elizabeth Hartford, Alex Leondedis, Brett Milanowski, Sarah Morin, Tyler Rosati
April 27 – June 24
The Rockwell
Davis Square
Somerville, MA
Run Time: 70 with no intermission
Critique by Kitty Drexel
Somerville, Mass. — Attend the tale of Mary the Evil! Mary, an incognito patron of Shit-Faced Shakespeare’s Macbeth who volunteered her spontaneous assassin services, bravely took to the stage on Thursday night at The Rockwell to competently stab with a foam sword and ninja-crawl her way across the stage and into our hearts. Mary may not have been the most formidable of hit-persons, but she was the most affable.
Audience participation is a regular component of any Shit-Faced Shakespeare. Select attendees are charged with ringing a cowbell or banging a gong to signal that the evening’s drunk actor should imbibe another alcoholic beverage. On Thursday, there were even rhythmic shouts of “Chug!” and, my new favorite, “Twerk!”
Drunk of the night, Tyler Rosati as Duncan and McDuff, neither twerked nor chugged but he didn’t have two. Rosati had a bag full of tricks to impress the entire room of mildly disappointed college kids. We weren’t disappointed for long.
One unlucky attendee is saddled with The Bucket. You don’t want to know what the bucket is for.
SFS’s Macbeth introduced us to new opportunities for the audience to purposefully interact with the cast: two audience members were brought on stage to stand in for background characters; Mary, a stranger and lucky patron, was volunteered by a cast member to play an important role in the play.
To her credit, Mary took to the opportunity with the ease of a natural. Her willingness to play along with the drunk and sober cast’s antics is admirable. She put on a costume and crawled on the floor. Unlike many, many non-theatre types sitting in an audience on any given Thursday evening, Mary was capable of rolling with the punches. The Macbeth cast got lucky.
SFS’s Macbeth stage is mostly bare. It has a false fake proscenium to make the stage look like a castle. This Macbeth calls for sword fighting, dancing, and drunken gallivanting. Lots of entrances and exits. There’s enough movement on stage that an uncluttered stage is necessary for everyone’s safety.
Give Mama a kiss; photo credit Shit-Face Shakespeare Boston.
A vacant stage was also incredibly helpful because Thursday night’s staging got wild. Other SFS productions had the expected amount of shenanigans such as adlibbing, unusual and unexpected entrances, costume mishaps, and cup sloshing but never before have I seen so much extracurricular sloppy kissing. The cast of SFS’s Macbeth must truly respect each other for such a thing to occur… Or, somebody needs to hire an intimacy director immediately. Both are good.
The cast didn’t seem to mind the scene-stopping face-sucking. The audience loved it. I hope it was as good for the participants as it was for us.
This brings up an important point: Mary and the cast members appeared to consent to their participation in SFS’s Macbeth. By showing up, cast and audience imply that they are there for a good time. There aren’t any markers or stopping points should someone stop having a good time. It’s one thing to bang a gong. It’s another to get dressed in a company costume and pretend to stab a character in the play.
It’s a universal rule that consent may be revoked at any time. The cast has codes to indicate if they need help or no longer consent to a predicament onstage. At the risk of being overly cautious, non-cast volunteers deserve the chance to opt out if things get intense.
Or, heaven forbid, kicked out if the volunteer gets too involved. Mary didn’t have a designated Compere (Turner Frankosky, who kept the show moving and Tyler Rosati on track) to ensure her safety. Both cast and audience deserve to feel safe.
Technical Director Jeff Bousquet in the tech booth was stellar. He was steadfast in his mission to deliver design unto Thursday’s show. Bousquet found cues in garbled lines and dropped dialogue. His professional work in SFS’s Macbeth impressively elevated the show.
Very fortunately, SFS’s Mackers was an awesome time. We laughed, we shouted – No one hurled chunks at anyone’s shoes because they missed The Bucket. And, we all learned an important lesson: Heed the tale of Mary the Evil lest you one day incur her wicked, reluctantly stabby wrath.
