Miss MacBeth

'Miss Macbeth' boils a witches' brew of campy laughs
BYLINE: WENDELL BROCK
Staff
DATE: January 14, 2005
PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)
EDITION: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SECTION: Movies & More
PAGE: E12

THEATER REVIEW

"Miss Macbeth"

8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and Wednesday; 3 p.m. Jan. 22; 7 p.m. Jan. 23. $15-$20. Part of 2005 Essential Theatre Festival, 7 Stages, Back Stage, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-523-7647. Tickets: www.7stages.org. Info: www.essentialtheatre.com

The verdict: Bloody good fun.

Atlanta writer Karen Wurl delivers a doozy of a backstage farce in "Miss Macbeth," in which thespian motives and manners are ridiculed with comic brio.

As college professor Susan (Sarah Falkenburg) tells her class about her glory days in a German experimentalist production of "Macbeth," the play unspools as a sequence of flashbacks in which the unsuspecting young actress finds herself involved in a series of bloody mishaps.

Seems that Susan was originally cast as Lady Macduff in the famous Werner Hagen's legendary production -- until her perverted boyfriend Robert (Jeff Feldman) announces that he wants to sleep with the actress playing the vixenish and controlling Lady M.

Before Susan can say, "Out, out, damned spot," she's entrapped in a hysterical turn of events including intentional and unintentional stabbings, ghostly visitations and broadly comic "Noises Off"-style shenanigans.

Director David Crowe keeps the 12-member cast suspended in a state of ridiculousness throughout the hourlong one-act, the winner of Essential Theatre's annual playwriting award for a Georgia writer. And Wurl gets great comedic payoff in the persons of Werner (Michael Shikany) and his assistant Claudia (Johanna Linden).

Since Werner barely speaks English, Claudia, in black leather pants and quirky frames, must translate. When their "Macbeth" makes headlines, she handles the news photographer with the timing of a fashion model: click.

As always, Feldman is deliciously evil. And Falkenburg, who's rarely offstage, is terrific as the wonderfully rattled, poker-faced supporting-player-turned-star.

Peter Hardy's Essential Theatre, which pops up once a year to do a festival of new plays, is staging the Atlanta premiere of Sam Shepard's "The Late Henry Moss" and Lee Blessing's "Going to St. Ives" in repertory with "Miss Macbeth."

"Miss Macbeth" probably deserves a stronger supporting cast and a slight trim. But in the presence of such tall company as Shepard and Blessing, Wurl holds her own. With its delirious pace, campy shtick and fake blood, "Miss Macbeth" is a delightful laugh-bath.