fringe: macbeth's witches

I always knew that this show had the potential to be horribly bad...but it was the only thing in the Fringe program this year that had anything to do with Macbeth, and one of only a very small number of shows that were in any way Shakespeare related.

However it didn't even manage to live up to the incredibly low expectations that I had for it.

It was worse than Eventyr, it was worse than Pirate Rapsody and it was worse than World War Wonderful.

It was without a doubt, the worse Fringe show that I've ever seen... no, actually, it was the worst show I've ever seen, period.

This show shouldn't have been called Macbeth's Witches, it should have been called Shakti Has Delusions of Grandeur For Forty Minutes.

I think part of the reason that I found this so horrible (other than the fact that it was), is my love for Shakespeare's Macbeth... they took something I love and in using it's name they violated it so completely by association.

If it had just been the three Asian women dancing as the Witches, then I could have survived... I would have probably said that it was a little dull, and what they were doing was only dancing in the most casual definition, but I wouldn't have hated it so much.

But I knew as soon as Shakti (that's her in the photo) lurched down the centre aisle in a tight purple vinyl dress and chunky red shoes carrying a whip that the show was doomed and if I'd been closer to the door or had been able to get out without walking across the performance space, I would have seriously considered walking out.

And it didn't help that Shakti was using a microphone to screech, slur and ham her way through patches of dialogue from Macbeth with both a microphone volume that was too loud and over music that was too loud, especially considering the size of the venue. If the music had been lower then the dialogue could have been spoken live without the distortion of the sound system.

But nothing would have saved the dialogue from Shakti's horrible, over the top interpretation of it. I know those words, I've heard those words performed by dozens of actors... and they've never sounded so incredibly amateur and hammy.

And as I said, what both Shakti and her three Witches were doing was hardly even dancing. Some of it was more like repeated tai chi to music, but most of what Shakti was doing wasn't even that.

I'm not even sure what she was doing on the stage for the last ten minutes though, because she came out in a kimono and then stripped that off to reveal what can only be described as a lot of black straps and far too little fabric. And once that happened I just stopped watching her.

Now if Shakti has been 20, that might have been okay... I'm not a fan of the female form flaunted like so much raw meat, but it could have been passable. However Shakti has to be pushing 50 at the bare minimum... and trust me, I saw more than the bare minimum of her, and I really, really didn't want to.

Nobody needs to see that. Nobody.

And if you are going to dress like a middle-aged bondage stripper, at least get a bikini wax first.

Do not, under any circumstances, go to see this show... avoid it like the plague, tell all of your friends to avoid it like the plague, stop complete strangers in the street and tell them not to see it.

Although on the plus side there is only one more session tomorrow.

This is officially now the new benchmark for things that I go to see... if I see something that's really bad, I'll be able to say "Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Macbeth's Witches"!

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