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May. 29th, 2014 11:17 pmSo tonight I went with an old work friend to go see something called Drunk Shakespeare. All I knew beforehand was that it takes place in a pub. It turns out the premise is that every night a rotating sacrificial lamb of an actor gets EXTREMELY drunk before and throughout the show (as opposed to the rest of the amiable hipster cast, who seem to linger somewhere around genially tipsy.) The sacrificial lamb then has the privilege of, at any point, pausing the show to interject a drunken point of order on whatever directorial insight seems reasonable to them at the time.
Some instances of tonight's directorial gems, delivered a very drunken Lady Macbeth, included:
- instructions that Ross, the messenger, must deliver every one of his speeches in a different communications style (text emoji, Morse Code, etc.). This culminated in probably the only time I will ever see the news of Lady Macduff's death delivered by an actor dressed only in boxers and a bow tie, through the vehicle of interpretative breakdance.
- a demand to swap her leather skirt for Macbeth's trousers.
- a request that the last scene between (living) Banquo and Macbeth be played as a competition between competing Matthew McConaugheys, subject to an audience applause-o-meter for the victor. ("Point of order! Matthew McConaughey would NEVER name his son Fleance." At this point an audience member was gotten to volunteer a name for the son, which gave a very gleeful Macbeth the opportunity to bellow "AND CHANNING TATUM MUST NOT ESCAPE THE FATE OF THAT DARK HOUR!" and then improvise for a while on the theme of how Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum inevitably stand in the way of his career advancement.)
How much of this all is actual drunken improv and how much is pre-planned is I think open to debate (Macbeth's pants fit Lady Macbeth SUSPICIOUSLY WELL, for example), and I really kind of hope at least a few of the eight to ten drinks we saw Lady Macbeth down over the course of the night were secretly water, because otherwise I am sort of nervous that one of these shows may someday end in tragedy. These concerns aside, it was largely a delightful experience. It's so aggressively lowbrow and full of dick jokes and fart jokes. Shakespeare would have LOVED IT.
In other theatrical news, Boston-area folks, the Post-Meridian Radio Players are doing The Trouble With Tribbles again this weekend -- Star Trek TOS with an all-female cast, with the exception of Uhura. I saw this several months ago at Arisia and it was SUPER FUN. Exasperated mom Kirk is the greatest Kirk.
Some instances of tonight's directorial gems, delivered a very drunken Lady Macbeth, included:
- instructions that Ross, the messenger, must deliver every one of his speeches in a different communications style (text emoji, Morse Code, etc.). This culminated in probably the only time I will ever see the news of Lady Macduff's death delivered by an actor dressed only in boxers and a bow tie, through the vehicle of interpretative breakdance.
- a demand to swap her leather skirt for Macbeth's trousers.
- a request that the last scene between (living) Banquo and Macbeth be played as a competition between competing Matthew McConaugheys, subject to an audience applause-o-meter for the victor. ("Point of order! Matthew McConaughey would NEVER name his son Fleance." At this point an audience member was gotten to volunteer a name for the son, which gave a very gleeful Macbeth the opportunity to bellow "AND CHANNING TATUM MUST NOT ESCAPE THE FATE OF THAT DARK HOUR!" and then improvise for a while on the theme of how Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum inevitably stand in the way of his career advancement.)
How much of this all is actual drunken improv and how much is pre-planned is I think open to debate (Macbeth's pants fit Lady Macbeth SUSPICIOUSLY WELL, for example), and I really kind of hope at least a few of the eight to ten drinks we saw Lady Macbeth down over the course of the night were secretly water, because otherwise I am sort of nervous that one of these shows may someday end in tragedy. These concerns aside, it was largely a delightful experience. It's so aggressively lowbrow and full of dick jokes and fart jokes. Shakespeare would have LOVED IT.
In other theatrical news, Boston-area folks, the Post-Meridian Radio Players are doing The Trouble With Tribbles again this weekend -- Star Trek TOS with an all-female cast, with the exception of Uhura. I saw this several months ago at Arisia and it was SUPER FUN. Exasperated mom Kirk is the greatest Kirk.
