500 CLOWN MACBETH | 500 CLOWN at steppenwolf
WHEN Through 7/28 (Macbeth) and 7/29 (Frankenstein); see listings for schedules
Murder and mayhem get the comic treatment in 500 Clown’s interpretations of Shakespeare and Shelley, but recent horrific events lend a dark, bitter edge to the hilarious 500 Clown Macbeth (2000) and the loopy 500 Clown Frankenstein (2003), both revived at Steppenwolf as part of its Visiting Company Initiative. The first was created before the Iraq war, the second before the torture at Abu Ghraib was made public, and neither work has been substantially changed since its debut. But the troupe’s cheerful displays of physical abuse–plus its ability to switch from producing laughs to inducing shudders–take on a new dimension in the current political context.
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Ambition is at the core of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and ambition is the force that drives the three clowns in this physical-theater performance with a meta-theatrical twist: they spend most of the show competing not to be king but to play the role of king. Clad in rags vaguely suggestive of Scottish sashes and kilts, the performers emerge from the dark area behind the seats perched on a platform above the audience’s heads, making noises that suggest the wind moaning, birds cawing, horses whinnying. The descent from their platform is a five-minute ordeal, as they lose their grip, nearly fall, and clamber over one another, creating a living, breathing waterfall of plaid and flailing limbs. When they finally reach the stage, they recite the witches’ incantations over recalcitrant props–one “cauldron” (a can with a light inside) explodes.
Humor’s in the eye of the beholder, but to me 500 Clown Frankenstein is too sadistic to be truly funny. If Macbeth calls to mind Laurel and Hardy–until the ending, a spirit of friendly cooperation pervades the piece–Frankenstein suggests the Three Stooges. 500 Clown even borrows abundantly from their physical shtick. An early sequence sets the tone: Frankenstein, frustrated with his bumbling assistant, aims flying kicks at the table, pinning him against a wall, then ramming him again and again. Later 500 Clown implicates the audience in its sadism–in both shows the actors sometimes prowl the aisles, asking audience members for input on the action–which makes Frankenstein very uncomfortable to watch: you’re viscerally aware of how easily groupthink can lead to the abuse of a scorned person. But ultimately I found it less tragic and less moving than Macbeth, where I identified with the bewildered innocents awash in blood, whose look seemed to say “How did we get here?”
