Familiarity with Shakespeare's Macbeth may actually prove to be a disadvantage when experiencing Bitch Macbeth. Producer-director-designer-writer Frank Cwiklik takes the well-worn tragedy and extrapolates the source material (as well as other Shakespearean motifs) into a dark, decadent fantasy world where nothing — including language — can be trusted. There is indeed a character named Macbeth (Adam Swiderski), and his wife, here called Femme Macbeth (Samantha Mason), does seem to be as conniving and power-hungry as the bard's Lady Macbeth. But in Cwiklik's alternate universe, the couple is at odds with the House of Asbury, something known as a "prime house," and so they must figure a way to topple them to gain power.
Cwiklik is certainly ambitious, and he's created an expansive mythology complete with coded language, sadomasochistic erotica, and startlingly graphic imagery. The witches are transformed into "Doms," who whip supplicants to foretell the future; young, pale women are naked and sold as sex slaves; characters are bound, gagged, and raped. Just as you feel you may be deciphering it all, sex-slave traders Rosenstern (Bryan Enk) and Guildencrantz (Matthew Gray) appear and throw us for yet another referential loop.
Although the dialogue can be impenetrable (many sentences lack verbs entirely), which causes the devious machinations to appear unnecessarily convoluted, there are some inspired choices that make the three-hour running time more bearable. Despite the limited resources, the small black-box theatre is filled with crackling energy due to Cwiklik's creative lighting design and an arresting score that mixes rock, jazz, and other ephemera to augment the disjuncture of time and space. The murder orgies, choreographed by Sarah E. Jacobs, and a sex scene played as a modern-dance duet between hunky Swiderski and tiny Becky Byers, who plays Prime Asbury, is particularly impressive. By the end, however, it felt like we had been witness to an elaborate sexual role-playing fantasy rather than a mature reinterpretation of Shakespearean tragedy and so were cheated of full theatrical satisfaction.
Presented by Do What Now Media in association with the Brick
at the Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, NYC.
Jan. 10-27. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7:30 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com or www.bricktheater.com.