RSS
Home
One more and I get an all expenses paid vacation to Dunsinane
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
McKerrin Kelly and Andrew Leman in "Macbeth"
Caught a production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” last weekend at
Theatre Banshee. You can read my review Thursday for Backstage West
The lines were, how shall I say…familiar. I did a quick stroll through theater-going memory lane and determined that Banshee’s marked the 14th time I had seen the play staged either professionally or at a college. This officially qualifies me for a Get a Life award. It also prompts the musing below.
My Macbeth list list includes no less than four productions at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where one of the Macbeths was former “Alias” A-lister Victor Garber; a production at the Royal Shakespeare Company in London with Jonathan Pryce as Macbeth and Sinead Cusack as Lady M.; Harry Lennix in Hollywood, David Birney and Joan van Ark in Orange County and Brian Bedford in Stratford, Ontario.
This list further includes Stephen Dillane in a one man “Macbeth” at Disney REDCAT subtitled “A Modern Ecstasy.” It omits the production at the La Jolla Playhouse (with John Vickery) where I watched for five minutes before deciding that I didn’t want to deal with a standing room seat.
In addition to the above mentioned, I have seen “Umbatha: Zulu Macbeth”; and an adaptation by The Acting Company, “Kabuki Macbeth.” Plus the Troubadour Theater Co. in “Fleetwood Macbeth.” For good measure, a couple years back, I reviewed a modernized Australian movie of “Macbeth.”
I’ve seen my older brother play Macbeth in Mendocino. Later this week, I’ll see the fifth grade class at San Jose Street Elementary School stage a shortened version under the guidance of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum…where I saw “Macbeth” last summer.
Admittedly, this is a span of 30 years we’re talking about, but hopefully my point is made… you can’t turn around without tripping over those three witches, “out damned spot,“ and all that blood. “Macbeth” is, to some minds, Shakespeare’s most direct and linear tragedy. The title role isn't the backbreaker that “King Lear” or “Hamlet” is, although Peter O’Toole, Alec Baldwin and Kelsey Grammer -- none of whose panned perfs I caught -- might argue otherwise.
Anyone out there in reader land want to share a Macbeth memory (a Macbethory?), please e-mail me. I’d be delighted to hear them.
And for those who need it now, there’s Banshee’s offering playing at 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd. in Burbank through April 26
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
