By Peter Maddern
Set in Perth, Western Australia, Greg Fleet has drafted a mash up of Shakespeare’s Macbeth with a tale about contemporary Australian politics. Whether to identify the isolation of the west or just use the “career saving” cliché of targeting the Liberal Party for a cut throat existence perhaps we learn little more than, as its title suggests, that 400 years on human nature is little changed – the power couple in pursuit of the throne taking no prisoners along the way other than for themselves as the folly of their ways grows.
Nicola Bartlett as Lainey Macbeth (get it?) comfortably out shines Fleet in this two hander; her firey nature set off by her silver streaked hair presents equally self-destructive and calculating as she plans and cajoles her husband to claim it all.
The production incorporates much audio visual content which was effective when the witches and the ghost of Banquo appear but probably in total it, along with the f-word profanity, is overdone; indeed the whole felt about 10 minutes too long.
Fleet is to be commended for stepping away from the safe world of being a popular stand-up comic and media quipper to write and star in this production. It certainly is an ambitious and, for the most part, successful endeavour, signifying more about him and its subject matter than its title may suggest to his usual audience.
Kryztoff Rating 3.5K
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