Sh!tfaced Shakespeare, where one of five classically trained actors appears on stage heavily intoxicated on a rotating schedule, is a little like a night of blackout drunkenness: it’s a whole lot of fun while its happening, you won’t remember much about it the day after, and you may feel a pang of regret when you realise there were more rewarding ways that you could have spent your money.
Sh!tfaced Shakespeare- Macbeth is an amalgam of three great British traditions: Shakespearean theatre, pantomime, and binge drinking. This new genre, pioneered at Fringe by the Sh!tfaced team, which we could call pint-omime, has spawned many imitators. In our British penal colony nation, the land of the Rum Rebellion, the concept is immensely popular.
It begins with the reveal of an unnamed cast member’s consumption: on this night, Lady Macbeth drank a Coopers green tin and three-quarters of a bottle of Bundaberg Rum. The identity of the inebriated is not named: you can tell by the slurring and the out-of-synch choreography. The Bundy fight juice consumption is a license to improv and it is, admittedly, very funny to watch a cast of skilled improvisers as they respond to and integrate the unpredictable mistakes: clumsy entries and exits, unfiltered streams of consciousness, unscripted intimacy.
Amidst it all, some sober Shakespeare is delivered. It could be argued that the Adelaide Festival elites will never step into a Sh!tfaced tent, and that a sizeable percentage of those that do are unlikely to be exposed to the work of the Bard in any other way; a bit of culture might seep in along with the celebration of drinking culture. While the cast are undoubtedly talented at what they do, it can be hard not to culturally cringe at the realisation that for many Australians, this is the style of art they prefer: an hour on the stage signifying nothing.
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