‘PC Beth’: Out, Out Damn Chip

A group of computer thespians will enact an E-mail version of “Macbeth,” heavily abridged and retitled “PC Beth,” in honor of Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23.

The San Diego-based producer, Stuart Harris, said that the show will begin around 10 a.m. on Delphi Internet Services. Approximately 18 “actors,” stationed in several countries, will feed their lines into the system. The lines will be numbered, providing all the participants with an easy cue. Anyone’s who’s signed on to the system can join the “audience.”

Harris is encouraging the “actors” to dress in period costume--though, of course, no one will know whether they do. Harris was a bona fide British actor 30 years ago, and he’s hoping to get a currently active British actor to play Macbeth. The rest will be “rank amateurs,” Harris said.

Harris and company have tried this twice before with their own version of “Hamlet” called “HamNet.” It was “terrific fun,” he said, but there also were a few kinks. On both occasions, “somewhere a circuit went down,” and the cast was divided into two groups who temporarily couldn’t communicate with each other. Of course, that’s more or less what happens in the play, too.

This production will definitely be less, not more, than the actual play. Harris hopes to trim the text to about 120 lines--”that’s about as much as the format can stand.” Although much of the text will be in English, computer symbols also will be used, if they express the proper emotion.

But isn’t the presence of people in the same room one of the primary ingredients of theater? “That’s what they used to say about conversation, too,” Harris said. On the other hand, “we’re trying to create a new art form,” he added.

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STEVE MARTIN, PLAYWRIGHT: Steve Martin, best known as a comic and filmmaker, is also a playwright. Look for his “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” to appear in Los Angeles under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The play, set at a Paris cafe in 1904, pits the young Einstein against Picasso in a debate, joined by a cast of barflies. It opened at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago last week after a fall workshop.

Martin is a trustee at LACMA and used the museum as a location in his movie “L.A. Stories.” Spokeswomen for the museum and Martin said a site is now being sought for an L.A. production.

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LADCC WATCH: Former recipients of Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards, and former members of the organization, will receive special recognition at the group’s annual awards luncheon next Sunday, in honor of the group’s 25th anniversary. Reservations for the $25-a-plate luncheon are available at (213) 466-1767.

The Critics Circle’s list of nominees for outstanding costume design, released earlier this year, was in error regarding the nomination for “Ondine” at Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble. Lori Martin, not Barbara Jacobs, designed the costumes and received the nomination for “Ondine.” The mix-up was attributed to an error in the “Ondine” program.