Sydney Morning Herald
Mark Hopkins
13 October 2008
What wicked fun this way comes
The playfully engaging set by production designer Pip Runicman comprises all the clues as to how children’s author turned playwright Andy Griffiths and director Wayne Harrison have turned Shakespeare’s Scottish play into a theatrical romp for children and adults.
Visceral images comic-book style, irreverent references to theatrical convention and wordplay, including a rearrangement of the play’s title, promise mirth aplenty for boys and girls. It is a promise delivered with gusto.
Griffiths transposes Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy into the story of three friends, (fans of Griffths’ Just! series will recognise the characters instantly). Underwhelmed by their class study of Macbeth, they are challenged with presenting a scene from the play. On the cusp of teenage years, Andy (Patrick Brammall), Lisa (Pippa Grandison) and Danny (Tim Richards) are drawn to the illicit magic of the witches. Armed with a food processor, knives and naive delight in naughtiness they proceed to concoct their own troublesome brew. Upon drinking their creation the transformative devices of theatre take them into the world of the play itself and they discover disturbing things about themselves when they realise they are Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo.
Interwoven throughout the exuberant exploitation of every childish gag from flatulence to expectorated marshmallows is a loving respect for theatre, its craft and capacity to enthral. Children in the audience are treated with respect, the artifice of the stage is acknowledged even as its tricks and devices are executed with aplomb. Shadow puppets fight with performers, iambic pentameter is rudely interrupted and murder is made to look a particularly stupid endeavour.
Mark Owen-Taylor, Rhiannon Owen and especially John Leary contribute much to the mayhem and with Brammall, Grandison and Richards create a strong rapport with all ages in the audience. Teh cast clearly enjoy the multiple readings the text allows. Griffiths, Harrison and his production team maintain coherence, theatrical masters at play with the master playwright. It is hard to conceive of a more appropriate production through which to introduce children to the theatre, let alone Shakespeare.
Herald Sun, Melbourne
Kate Rose
28 September 2008
Playing the Bard for laughs
From the first fart joke it’s fairly obvious
Macbeth! is not going to follow the original. But what it does is almost more difficult – it makes Shakespeare accessible and funny to an audience of children.
Author and playwright Andy Griffiths has taken home a mountain of Children’s Choice Awards for his books and has turned his hand to Macbeth.
Andy and his mates are suffering through Shakespeare in class when a mishap with a magic potion sends them to Scotland, where the locals mistake them for characters in the play.
Karaoke, garden gnomes and cross-dressers are roped in to help 12-year-olds Andy (Patrick Brammall), Danny (Tim Richards) and Lisa (Pippa Grandison) see the story through.
This is a high-energy, madcap production that had the children in the audience spell-bound from start to finish and they weren’t the only ones. Just Macbeth! is a great romp and the actors throw themselves into their roles with genuine delight.
The Age
Raymond Gill
26 September 2008
Dirty deeds done for laughs
Chances are there has never been a production of the Scottish play where Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here” speech is upstaged by her dithering husband, Macbeth, who is busy stuffing his face with marshmallows. Nor one imagines, has Macduff ever been so convincingly played by a garden gnome.
But in this riotously funny adaptation of the bloodiest of tragedies, Shakespeare’s conniving characters and their dastardly deeds find perfect partnership with author Andy Griffiths, who is no stranger to yuck and trickery.
Here his characters Andy, Lisa, Danny and Jen from his Just Tricking! Just Stupid! and Just Schocking! books are on stage and shoving Wizz Fizz, eye of newt and spleen into a blender. They magically take on the characters from Macbeth and under Wayne Harrison’s direction play out the story with a knockabout energy.
Griffiths peps up and simplifies the Macbeth plot with a relentlessly entertaining arsenal of fart jokes, slapstick hip-hop, “he’s behind you!” audience participation, gooey gore, and even a diagram to explain “not of woman born” is just an olde worlde way of saying “caesarean.”
But many original speeches are kept and retain their hold on the audience due to the generous performances of Patrick Brammall (Macbeth), Pippa Grandison (Lady Macbeth), Mark Owen-Taylor (Duncan) and Tim Richards (Banquo). Pip Runicman’s set is delightfully low-tech and Griffiths and Harrison ensure that the gags are aimed at both kids and adults.
The Australian
Alison Croggon
25 September 2008
Full of sound and fury, signifying some fun
As anyone with the slightest acquaintance with a 10-year-old boy will know, children's author Andy Griffiths is a superstar. He has captured this notoriously book-shy demographic with titles such as Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict and The Day My Bum Went Psycho, which feature shamelessly awful puns, bizarre imaginings and disgusting bodily fluids.
Among his most wildly popular books are his Just series (Just Stupid!, Just Disgusting! and so on), which star the Year 7 schoolboy Andy and his friends. I don't know which genius commissioned Griffiths to adapt Macbeth in the manner of these books, but they can have a Wizz Fizz on me.
One of the serious gaps in our theatre has been the lack of main-stage theatre for children. Most often it's hived off into educational programs or worthy-sounding events, which of course have their value. But it's crucial to develop audiences from a young age. And that means taking young people seriously and including them, as European and English theatres do, in main-stage programs.
Bell Shakespeare leads the way with this irrepressibly irreverent version of Macbeth, which appeals to the 10-year-old in all of us. Here the characters of the Just series, Andy (Patrick Brammall), Danny (Tim Richards) and Lisa (Pippa Grandison), find themselves studying Macbeth at school. Andy's response is, of course, to fall asleep. But under the spell of Lisa's tyrannical charisma, he finds himself making the witches' brew (eye of newt and toe of frog) for a school presentation, a scene that evoked an appropriately disgusted reaction.
Of course, the friends drink the potion. And then find themselves in medieval Scotland, magically transformed into the main characters in Shakespeare's tragedy.
This is a brilliant way of introducing young audiences to Shakespeare. Between the fart jokes, expectorations of marshmallows and pantomime business, Griffiths demystifies the language, explains in simple, hilarious terms the function of soliloquies, and outlines the action and motivations of the play. He unobstrusively brings in Shakespeare's speeches, so the transparency of Shakespeare's language when it is spoken gradually becomes apparent. Any kids who later encounter Macbeth proper will be well primed. Most important, as my shining 10-year-old nephew attested afterwards, they'll know that theatre can be brilliant fun.
Just Macbeth! is directed by Wayne Harrison with ingenuity and theatrical wit, and performed unpatronisingly by a sharp and enthusiastic cast. Recommended for children of all ages.
Australian Stage Online
Paul Kooperman
25 September 2008
Witches, Daggers, Bed Wetting and Wizz Fizz
Surrounded by children laughing at the fart jokes and the funny man stuffing his face with marshmallows, playing with their program (as per the instructions), yelling out at regular intervals and trying to interact with the actors on stage, I wondered if this was really helping children understand Shakespeare and encourage them to read or learn about it. I concluded that it’s irrelevant. The children and families and who packed the Playhouse Theatre loved it and left with a smile. Any play or performance which makes children enjoy the experience so thoroughly they can’t stop talking about it at interval and after the show is worthy of being considered a great success.
It was a marvellous blend of a fun and lively design by Pip Runciman, sharp direction by the formidable Wayne Harrison, clever plot parallels and colourful, engaging writing by Andy Griffiths as well as big and bold performances by the wonderful cast: Patrick Brammall, Pippa Grandison, Mark Owen-Taylor (who several audience members screamed excitedly for when they recognised him from Play School), Tim Richards, Rhiannon Owen and John Leary.
Bell Shakespeare continues to be a company which surprises, delights and entertains. Whether you’re a fan of the Bard or not, whether the children watching the show leave the auditorium with a better understanding of a soliloquy or whether the show actually teaches anything about anything – who cares!? Children as young as three and four years old were gripped and fully engaged along with teenagers and their teachers, who actually mouthed the words during some of the more famous Shakespearean speeches. Will Shakespeare and Andy Griffiths make a great team! Let’s hope for further collaboration.
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