No holds Bard

Wrestling Macbeth a riotous retelling of the Bard’s classic

Wrestling Macbeth, as the title suggests, pits the highest of high culture in a grudge match with the lowest of low. Less bookish than berserk, Jon Ludwig’s show for the Center for Puppetry Arts offers a match-up of the ritualistic hoopla of professional wrestling with the structure and surprisingly much of the text of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. You can find parallels between the two entertainments with only a little bit of a stretch. Just as many of the Bard’s tragedies and history plays turn on the struggle for the crown, so do wrestling matches hinge on who will claim the champion’s belt. If any Shakespeare play should get pulled into the ring, it’s Macbeth. What the cursed Scotsman says of life could equally apply to WWF bouts: “a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Elizabethan theater and modern wrestling bouts are highly stylized spectacles, and in making them a tag-team for Wrestling Macbeth, Jon Ludwig and his company of mad puppeteers concoct one of their most outrageously imaginative productions. Its noise and mayhem eventually wear you out — after a while, you’ll be ready to hit the canvas yourself — but it’s still an insanely fun, one-of-a-kind event.

The play takes place as a broadcast of the Wrestling Puppet Universe, or “WPU,” with a hilariously ominous central ring for the matches and a rear screen for displaying both shadow puppets and live video of the matches in progress. Ringside announcers are Matt “The Voice” Yates and Tony Brown, one of the Shakespeare Tavern’s MVPs, while the puppeteers in and around the space wear black wrestling trunks and masks.

Macbeth’s major battle scenes and confrontations are fought by muscle-bound puppets in the ring, from the “Rebels vs. Thanes” that sets Macbeth on road to title, to the climactic “Wrastle in the Castle.” The play-by-play commentary mentions pile-drivers and sleeper holds, as well as phrases clipped directly from Shakespeare’s text, like “They’re bathed in reeking wounds!” or Macbeth’s menacing slogan, “Sleep no more!” The bell’s tolling for King Duncan’s death, naturally, now signals the beginning of another round.

The production has the heavy metal epic style of “Smackdown” installments down pat, from Rob Gal’s portentous, crunching soundtrack to the trash-talking between opponents to the inclusion of “unexpected” attacks. “If you’re following along in your First Folio, you’re screwed!” Yates declares during one. Typically for Ludwig shows, it draws gags from the entirety of pop culture, from Smokey the Bear to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” King Duncan suggests Hulk Hogan or Gorgeous George, Prince Malcolm looks suspiciously like Elvis, Macduff is a masked “mystery man” and most amusingly, Macbeth is a beetle-browed Neanderthal who speaks in grunts.

With some of the Center’s “New Directions” shows, the restriction for mature audiences seems like merely a gesture to cover its back in case a parent objects to a bit of bawdy humor. Wrestling Macbeth, however, earns the warning, at times proving as filthily funny as an episode of “South Park.” Ironically, the high school literature students who’d get the biggest kick of the play won’t be allowed to attend. Scantily-clad, huge-bosomed Lady Macbeth (voiced by Lorna Howley) and Lady Macduff are inspired by distaff grapplers like Chyna, and when one uses the “Mammary Slammary” against the other, it’s only a mild example of the show’s raunchy slapstick.

In the play, ambition is Macbeth’s tragic flaw, and such is the case with Wrestling Macbeth. Ludwig and his troupe are brave to touch on as much of the play as they do, using “commercials” for action figures and meat pies for the shorter, transitional scenes. But there’s only so many wrestling moves that one foam puppet can use against another, and some moments feel like padding, such as the second women’s match. Rather than a heavyweight two-hour show (with an intermission), Wrestling Macbeth may be more light on its feet in a leaner 90 minutes.

The scenes with the three witches, imagined here as gangstas, don’t always fit the wrestling context, and some of their jokes fall flat. Other moments play to Ludwig’s tested strengths and interests, as when the “cauldron bubble” sequence becomes a wild fertility ceremony, with exotic dancing, phallic serpents and a hip-hop score. As usual there’s plenty of rowdy audience participation, including a clever means of bringing “Birnham Wood to Dunsinane.”

Macbeth is reputed as the “cursed” play, and Shakespeare purists may see the steel cages and T&A of Ludwig’s version as simply the least dignified of modern “concept” productions. The irony is that the better you know the original, the more you’ll enjoy Wrestling Macbeth, although it’s not a prerequisite. Shakespeare himself — “holder of an unprecedented 34 titles, not counting the sonnets!” — might remain the world champeen, but anyone who attends Wrestling Macbeth in the right spirit will be a winner as well.

Wrestling Macbeth plays through July 30 at the Center for Puppetry Arts, 1404 Spring St., with performances at 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. and 5 p.m. Sun., with 11 a.m. student matinees on weekdays. $12-$16. 404-873-3391.