BardVids from Ian McKellen's 1978 Macbeth

Here are a couple of wonderful vidclips from Trevor Nunn’s 1978 Macbeth, starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. The video quality isn’t great, but it should give you an idea of what this wonderful production has to offer, starring two of the greatest actors of our time:
“It was the owl that shrieked…”
The Banquet Scene:
Click [...]

Macbeth (1978) starring Ian McKellen & Judi Dench, directed by Trevor Nunn

© 2005 John Murphy
The set is sparse, dark, perpetually fog-filled. A Caravaggio-inspired lighting scheme picks out the actors’ faces from the deep shadow around them. Shakespeare’s words, in this context, take on a visionary vividness. As with Kevin Kline’s filmed stage production of Hamlet, the words in Trevor Nunn’s Macbeth are emphasized and given life [...]

Macbeth (1948), directed by and starring Orson Welles

© 2004 John Murphy
Harold Bloom called Macbeth Shakespeare’s most “Expressionistic” play. It is only appropriate, then, that America’s most Expressionistic filmmaker, Orson Welles, settled on “The Scottish Play” as his first foray into Bard adaptation (later followed by Othello and Chimes at Midnight). Macbeth was an appropriate choice for the auteur, considering some kind of [...]

A Glance Back at OSF 2009

Notwithstanding the gorgeous production of Death and the King’s Horseman starring Derrick Lee Weeden, the hugely entertaining Music Man starring Michel Elich, the side-splittingly funny Servant of Two Masters, and a wonderfully inventive production of All’s Well That Ends Well that actually made me, at least for two hours, actually like that ornery problem play, [...]

Patrick Stewart on playing Macbeth

American Theater Wing, founder of the Tony Awards, has posted an audio interview with Patrick Stewart, who is currently playing Macbeth on Broadway…put money in my purse!
For those of you who, like me, alack, cannot afford the plane & theater tickets, the link to the interview, at least, is here.

OSF 2009 season announced

We just got news that Bill Rauch has announced the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2009 season. (To watch a video of the announcement, click here.)
ANGUS BOWMER THEATRE
MACBETH by William Shakespeare (February – November)
Director: Gale Edwards; Scenic Design: Scott Bradley; Costume Design: Murrell Horton; Lighting Design: Mark McCollough; Music/Sound: Todd Barton.

DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN [...]

The Moral Order of Macbeth

There’s a very thoughtful commentary on Macbeth by Harry V. Jaffa over at the Claremont Institute. The essay investigates the declining morality of Western civilization vis-a-vis three of its literature’s most memorable anti-heroes: Macbeth, Raskolnikov of Dostovesky’s Crime and Punishment, and Camus’ Stranger, Merseault.
The message—I am tempted to call it the moral—of Macbeth, is the [...]

Macbeth (2006) starring Sam Worthington and directed by Geoffrey Wright

Directed by Geoffrey Wright
Starring Sam Worthington and Victoria Hill
Bloody, Bold Macbeth
I like filmmakers who get their hands dirty wrestling with the Bard, who don’t take the text as something sacrosanct but rather as something to be lived, breathed, and dramatized. I have a soft-spot for Baz Luhrmann’s hyperactive, R + J, for example, and Peter [...]