“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” Asks the first witch in the unforgettable opening line of William Shakespeare’s haunting and possibly haunted play, The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Well, the musical wunderkinds of Boorloo/Perth-based Crash Theatre Company have an irrepressibly harmonious answer: during the lead-up to a high school netball final played between the Dunsinane Hellhounds and the Birnam Owls.
Transporting the macabre mayhem of the Bard’s most bewitching tale to a suburban Australian school is an uncanny stroke of supernaturally evil genius, cauldron bubbling Mean Girls and Six into a deliciously wicked mix.
Those Weird Sisters – Georgia McGivern, Emily Semple and Gabriella Munro – now appear in the form of the Dagger Divas, or at least a phantasmagorical manifestation of said fictional girl power group. Looking suspiciously like Hellhounds team players Brooke Ross, Ashley Donalbain and Jess Malcolm, clothed in courtside attire of pink hooded cowls, they’re in the ear of wing defender Mac Beth. As played by Orla-Jean Poole with her scalp-pulling ponytail in check, she’s magnificently chaotic as a Sporty Spice figure gone horribly wrong. So determined is she to be team captain, she hardly needs the divas’ malevolent encouragement to stab anyone in the back (metaphorically speaking).
Sure, nobody actually dies in this frenetically fun and supremely well-done pop musical spin that mainly unleashes riotous laughter rather than bloody murder. But heaven help anyone who blocks a play. When hilariously mean selfie-obsessed queen bee Chloe McDuff (Shannon Rogers) is named in Mac’s stead by Coach Duncan (a show-stealing Courtney McManus, summoning the ghost of Sharon Strzelecki), chaos reigns. And while vainglorious Chloe might not be the most sympathetic victim, does she truly deserve Mac’s nasty whispering campaign? She’s the first, but not last, of several players to have their hopes dashed by nefarious means, with even supremely sweet bestie Summer Banquo (Kate Sisley) fair game in Mac’s tyrannical determination to seize the courtly crown.
With a book by McManus who, alongside cast member and creative producer Ana Ferreira Manhoso, contributes finger-snapping lyrics to director Bec Price’s synth-fired score, Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence is infinitely more inventive than Macbeth (an Undoing) at Malthouse Theatre earlier this year. Segueing from Aussie colloquial slang one second to Shakespearean lyricism the next is cackle-baiting so outrageously incongruous that one character immortally responds, “What the fuck?”
Furiously fired with WTF energy and Rogers’s high-energy choreography, the show’s an unstoppable hoot. Seriously, good luck quieting your belly roars from that moment on. I certainly failed, and now it feels like my ribs have been dragged unceremoniously from the battlefield.
Trust me, you don’t need seriously shifty prophets to tell you this is destined to be one of this year’s mightiest Melbourne Fringe highlights. The real devil’s work is the run only lasting as many nights as Shakespeare had witches. Pray to Hecate you’re reading this while you can still conjure tickets or sacrifice whatever scalp needs be to see it extended.
Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence is playing until October 4 at Trades Hall. Snap up the last few tickets here.
Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.