This is by far the very worst Macbeth ever performed. It doesn't help that The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society produced this fiasco. This group of women even brought in theater expert George Peach (Jim Clevenger) to give his expert opinion. Not only that, they made him perform in drag. Good grief! Being a woman's club, they're short of men, so they cast goateed Henry (Steve Stetak) in a prominent female role.
Thank you, Patio Playhouse and director Rob Wolter, for bringing The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of Macbeth by playwrights David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin, Jr., to Escondido. It's silly, it's funny, it's inane, and it defies being put into one comedic genre.
Mrs. Reece (Miranda Porter), the high mucky muck of the society, hustles her actors and the audience prior to curtain. She got this writer to buy raffle tickets for a jar of marmalade (at least that's what I think it is). Yes, I won. Mr. Peach tried to abscond with it. Untrustworthy lot, the both of them!
Fortunately, a couple of the club members show some semblance of acting skills. Felicity Walker (Karen Spafford) has moments of believability.
Mighty Minnie (Catharine Bock) valiantly gives it her all, but the no-talent others are constantly upstaging her. One of her credits is "Shogun Macbeth." Luckily, she has done one Shakespeare play that wasn't a take-off.
Dawn, Kate and Thelma (Vesta Gleissner, Tiffany Paster and Linda Claudius) do everything possible to destroy the Bard's work. They have a high success rate.
Finally, there is Plummer (Rob Wolter), who has to be the most frustrated member of the troupe.
For one hour and 45 minutes, the cast destroy Shakespeare to perfection. The audience is in almost constant laughter, which is not particularly beneficial to one's sides. Somehow, and I never did figure it out, they managed to include Frank Sinatra's "Old Black Magic" as the witches danced about the cauldron (well, actually a 55-gallon drum). "Double, double, toil, and trouble" will always have a new meaning for me after this experience.
Costume designer Miranda Porter teamed with Teri Porter and Caro Louise to create some quite authentic costumes as well as totally outlandish designs. Tiffany Paster's delightful choreography is in keeping with the humor of the production. David Farlow's sound design, as well as Rob Wolter's lighting design, added immensely to the overall disastrous effect.
The staging deserves a special commendation. As you enter the theater, you are immediately confronted with a rather strange show curtain completely hiding the set. After Mrs. Reece's opening remarks and problems with the lighting and just about everything else, the curtain opens, revealing the back of the set. The show begins when it is finally brought to somebody's attention that the set is facing the wrong way. Again, Mrs. Reece regales us with some nonsense while the set is turned around. They reconstruct the set in short order, and the ladies' version of Macbeth re-starts.
The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of Macbeth assaults and amuses. It is silly, crowd-pleasing fun, just the right sort of thing for a summer Sunday afternoon.
