MACBETT, Division 13 Productions and Greasy Joan & Company, at the Chopin Theatre. Director Joanna Settle clearly has an exacting vision; it seems no element escapes her notice in this production of Eugene Ionesco’s dark, absurdist romp through Shakespeare’s Macbeth. On Andrew Lieberman’s sublimely garish set–a severe expanse of wood-grain paneling and featureless carpet that lumbers gracelessly almost into the audience’s lap–the play seems a kind of nightmarish raver party. The tyrant archduke Duncan is a dissipated, pajama-clad hedonist doted upon by his ultrafey assistant. His wife, a thrift-store dominatrix in mile-high heels, betrays him by conspiring with twin assassins Macbett and Banco, who seem pulled from a 1980s new wave clothing catalog. Once Macbett assumes the throne, he’s transformed into a maniacal Vegas performer surrounded by sycophantic minions in white isolation suits and Day-Glo plastic wigs.
