Macbeth Two Ways, in North Hollywood

A A A Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Thursday, Jul 19 2012

Hand it to the Zombie Joe company and director Josh T. Ryan to turn the play inside out so that your skin crawls — and that's a compliment. Minus the aforementioned punk-goth witches, seven men in the institutional garb of a prison or a mental ward play all the roles — bringing it closer in concept to Dillane's psychodramatic Macbeth. Michael Blomgren's Macbeth is simply terrifying for his/her intensity, when he turns femme upon receiving a Queen Liz-like crown. (Lady M's line, "Out, out, damn spot" — referring to the bloodstains that won't wash off her hands — becomes his line as he takes on both characters in a fusion of evil.)

The seven men open the play humping the corpse of Duncan's predecessor, also an invented scene. It too sets the tone for what is the inverse of Kubzansky's production — sneering, screaming, preening, satiric, tautly choreographed and as harried as Kubzansky's production is languorous. Ryan's adaptation runs a little more than an hour, settling near show's end onto the image of a cigarette lighter, barely illuminating the cast of ghost-faces: "Life's but a walking shadow," says our throttled king. The production, however, is a galloping shadow, and a noisy one.

PHOTO BY ZOMBIE JOE

Blood of Macbeth at Zombie Joe's Underground

Location Info

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Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre

4850 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601

Category: Community Venues

Region: San Fernando Valley

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The Antaeus Company and Antaeus Academy

5112 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601

Category: Theaters

Region: San Fernando Valley

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It too is full of sound and fury, enacted collectively but signifying a manic swath of angst. It spits in our faces and winks. It defies analyzing. It's just something to be felt. You can't leave this tiny room without feeling something. And that's not bad.