Connecticut Post September 20, 1997
This "Macbeth" worth trip
By SHIRLEY MATHEWS
Theater reviewer
This deconstructed and very imaginative version of Shakespeare's blood-soaked "Macbeth"- called here "witches' Macbeth" - could give lessons to the more mainstream theatrical community.
The primary lesson is, of course, that creativity counts more than money, an idea immediately evident from the flaking, peeling and generally bombed-out feeling of the former synangogue where this entry in the New York International Fringe Festival got its start.
It was successful enough in that venue that it has now transferred to the Williamsburg Arts Center in Brooklyn.
The acting ranges from earnest to very good indeed, with Holly Natwora palying the power mad Lady Macbeth as a sensual serpent in this bleak Scottish garden.
But it is Richard Kimmel's 75-minute version of this war-torn grab for the Scottish throne that dwarfs all reaction to individual actors. He combines an oriental minimalism and its highly stylized forms with a very modern sense of the brutality and crudeness of war.
So, while the witches have the flavor (and a bit of the look) of the kabuki, the actors look as if they have just crawled out of a POW camp in Vietnam, raggedly, filthy and clad in ill-fitting Army greens.
This version of "Macbeth" is helped immeasurably by a previous knowledge of the play, but if you've brushed up your Shakespeare, it's well worth a ride on the L train to Brooklyn.