What is the magical spell that Orson Welles legendary “Voodoo Macbeth” holds over us? It was neither the first nor the only production of its kind, and yet 75 years later this the one that we go back to as one of the best examples of what a visionary director can do with Shakespeare. Ironically there’s talk of someone actually doing “Welles’ Voodoo Macbeth” again, as something of an homage. Not really sure how I feel about that. Newstok’s own essay in the collection refers to these as “re-do Macbeths.”
Anyway that brings us to Weyward Macbeth : Intersections of Race an Performance, edited by Scott Newstok. Scott was one of the first authors (editor, to be more specific) to have enough faith in my fledgling little site to send me a copy of his book, Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare, for review. I had no idea who Kenneth Burke was at the time, and said as much, but I must have done something right because Scott’s kept in touch over the years.
When Scott offered me a review copy of his latest, my first reaction was “Oh, like Voodoo Macbeth.” Scott said that reactions such as mine, this believe that the universe of what we’ll call “racial Shakespeare” began with Welles, was really a motivating factor for the book’s existence. Who paved the way for Welles’ vision? What’s happened in the 75 years since? Time neither started nor stopped in 1936, and there’s plenty to talk about on both sides of this particular (though monumentous) event in Macbeth history.
When I received the book, a collection of essays on the subject, I did just like I did with the Burke book – I flipped around the contents to find somewhere I felt like I could dive in. I looked to see where Welles and voodoo showed up, and was intrigued to see the first essay about Welles on page 83, 9 essays in. What, then, came first? I see that essay #8 is entitled Before Welles: A 1935 Boston Production. Coming from Massachusetts, I’m intrigued. I pick that one. 1935? Like, the year before? Why have we never heard of that one?

This production did not go for an exotic locale, though it was indeed an “all negro” cast (that is the term used in the essay). Other than that it was intended to be staged largely as Shakespeare wrote it, specifically because the director believed strongly in presenting the talent and range of his black actors. (This to me sounds like something of a snipe at Welles’ production which gained its legendary status precisely for its staging and its direction, and almost nothing is ever said of the actors themselves.)
Did Welles get wind of this production? That would, as the essay understates, “prove an important complication of the Welles legend.” I’ll say. He always claimed that his wife gave him the idea. But what credit would be due if he got the idea from seeing (or at least hearing about) a previous, similar production?
The book is full of small little fascinating selections like this. Flip toward the front of the book and you can read stories of Frederick Douglass using passages from Macbeth in 1875. Do not miss the picture of Ira Aldridge, a black man, portraying Macbeth in 1830.
Or flip toward the end and maybe head right for the sure-to-raise-eyebrows “ObaMacbeth” essay which goes straight for Barack Obama. After mentioning that Obama’s campaign never invoked Macbeth, the essay author Richard Burt spots a Newsweek story that broke out the footage from Welles’ production and basically called upon Obama to bring about a progressive revolution to the National Endowment for the Arts.
With 26 essays spanning over 200 pages, there is a massive amount of information here about the history of interpreting the Scottish play. An excellent and thought-provoking collection from Scott Newstok once again, and I’m pleased that I get the opportunity to have projects such as these cross my desk.

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski hit the scene in January 2010, and we were there. In it, Adam Bertocci masterfully retells cult movie The Big Lebowski as if it had been written by, well, you know who.
So in a true demonstration of just how quickly an online hit can go from viral to print, I hold in my hands the paperback version of the book which Simon and Schuster were nice enough to send me in thanks for my early support of the project.
I’ve sat here for awhile, reading it front to back, trying to decide how I’d review this one. Then I wondered, what am I doing? If you’ve got interest at all in this project, you’ve also probably got the movie memorized. And chances are that you’ve already read, or at least skimmed, the online version.
But here’s a little secret that I’m not sure I should admit — I’ve never seen the movie. Gasp! It’s true. I started it, once. I know the bit about the rug. And some early scenes in the bowling alley where John Goodman pulls a gun on somebody because his toe went over the line. That’s about it. So that put me in what was probably a fairly unique situation – reading the Shakespeare version as if it were the original. It helped that I could picture Jeff Bridges as “The Knave”, I’ll tell you that.
If you know the movie and you’ve read the online version, why should you get the book? For the annotations, mainly. They’ve done this one up like a traditional text, with the script on one side and a full page of footnotes and other annotations on the facing page. That means that Mr. Bertocci not only had to map the entire plot of the movie into a Shakespearean script, but he had to backfill all the notes as well. Pay attention, because often those are the best part!

7. lance: euphemism for penis; see also most nouns in Shakespeare.

Many variations on that theme, as you could imagine. 🙂
Is the original movie on Netflix streaming? I’m thinking I’ll watch the whole thing now, this book in hand, and see how it works out. Somebody should do an audio book, and then we can play the old Wizard of Oz / Dark Side of the Moon game where you put on the video, turn the sound down, and play the audiobook in sync with it. That’d be cool!

A funny thing happened on the way to this review.  I got email from Tor books, who are known in the scifi/fantasy world.  So I thought it was a press release and didn’t really pay attention – until I noticed that Shakespeare was mentioned.  Then I realized it wasn’t a mass mailing, it was addressed directly to me at my Shakespeare Geek address. Turns out that this particular book was written by a Shakespeare professor and they thought I might like  a review copy. Sure! Will Power is the second in a series from author A.J. Hartley, Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare at the University of North Carolina. I felt a little weird jumping into the series in the middle, but really if you think about the fantasy genre the odds are against you on that one (for any N book series, you’ve got an N-1 out of N chance of finding a book other than book 1). This book tells the continuing story of our merry band of adventurers, including one Will Hawthorne, playwright.  You know the type – generally cowardly sort who only came along to hang out on the sidelines and partake of the treasure, and maybe some beer and wenches.  And, naturally, he’s the one who inevitably saves his stronger and braver friends when they get into trouble.  In Will Power, it doesn’t take long before the group is mysteriously transported into a strange new land, and split up in the process.  They soon find themselves unwelcome guests right in the middle of a war between the Fair Folk and the Goblins.  But is all as it seems?  His companions Orgos and Mithos have been captured by goblins, Renthrette and Garnet have joined the Fair Folk, Lisha is lost somewhere, and something just doesn’t feel right to Hawthorne. What happens next?  There are enough twists and turns and clever devices that I can honestly say I didn’t predict where the story would go.   The story ends on a satisfactory note while simultaneously opening up a door for the next book in the series.  This author knows how to write fantasy. 🙂 What about the Shakespeare, you’re asking?  Me too.  There’s a funny scene early on when Hawthorne stumbles across what he thinks is a tavern, and introduces himself by reciting something of a mini-ballad … in iambic pentameter.  Not bad. Later, while roaming around the city of the Fair Folk, we learn that they have a library, and that library has a drama section.  Hawthorne makes a beeline for this literary oasis, breaking down doors (seriously) to get to it.  I think some of the literature geeks in the audience can appreciate what that feels like.  There may be a goblin war raging outside the city walls, but if you need me I’ll be curled up with a good book. There are also plenty of opportunities to do the whole “act like somebody you’re not” thing for our hero.  He has to act like he knows what he’s doing half the time, after all.  But none of that is really Shakespeare.  Nobody “puts on a show.” The press release suggests “a magical world which very closely resembles that of the Elizabethan Era,” and I’m wondering if that was a comment from the first book.  Because other than starting the book out in a tavern and making regular comments about the poor quality of the beer, I can’t really see where the Elizabethan thing comes in.  Oh, well, I take that back – the city of the Fair Folk is populated with courtiers who spend their days drenching each other in over-the-top metaphor (“My Lord, embers and smoldering leaves produce a smoke most bitter and unwholesome to the senses, yet the heat from whence it rises is but a poor and mean thing at which one might not even warm one’s hands. The heart of a furnace burns pure and hot, consuming all and leaving little there to smoke withal. So my love for Johanna, like the core of the forge, blazes with white, undying passion, while yours for Beatrice, I fear, so cool and, doused with overlong laments, smokes merely.”)  I always thought this behavior was more Victorian than Elizabethan, but I’m not a history buff.  What it reminded me of was a Monty Python version of Oscar Wilde.  It did not go unnoticed, either, that the author drops in names like Beatrice as necessary – one of the others tells the story of a young lady enamored with a certain young shepard named Corin, as well.  Both are direct, if insubstantial, Shakespeare references.   Will Power was an entertaining fantasy book.  I may have started out assuming that it was going to fit the standard form where the ‘weakling’ in an otherwise stalwart band of adventurers eventually turns out to save the day, but in the end there was enough originality that I was impressed with how it all went down.  I would have liked more Shakespeare, but that’s not a fair measure – I always want more Shakespeare, up to the point where it *is* Shakespeare. :)  I’ll be curious to see how the third book goes, and how much Shakespeare comes into it.

To date I’ve seen Commshakes’ productions of Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors … and now, Othello.

Best one yet. First, let me get a few geeky things out of the way.  The group behind us actually brought a game of Othello, winning serious geek points (Othello at Othello, yes?)  I thought about it and posted it on Twitter but was unable to find a set in time.  I told these people that, and the lady told me, “Amazon.  Two weeks ago.  I’ve been planning for this.”  She seriously needs to hang out here because that is one major Shakespeare geek.

On with the show.  I find that I’m always disappointed with Iago in the opening scenes, and I think I know why.  In theory, I build him up like some sort of demonic sociopath, and I expect a Charles Manson or Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs sort of figure.  When he inevitably is not, I immediately think, “Oh, I don’t like this guy.”  But then he grows on me. 

Othello, on the other hand, I loved.  He’s … perfect.  Sweeps on stage and never loses control over anything.  When they tell him, “Desdemona’s father is looking for you!” he calmly goes to look for him because he knows he’s done nothing wrong.  When he’s basically put on trial for using witchcraft against Desdemona, he again says with absolute certainty,  “Go ask her yourself.”  He is almost inhuman in this, like “No one is really like that.”  You almost want to see him crumble just a bit.  Maybe not as much as happens, but just a little.

Before we introduce Desdemona, a word about the setting.  I was trying to place exactly what time frame they were going for, and I think it was WWII.  At first, I thought they had a sort of Casablanca look about them, and afterward, when we were discussing the show, the movie LA Confidential came up.  So imagine this as Desdemona enters, done up like something out of a Lana Turner movie – nicely dressed in a suit, hair swept back under a tiny hat.  Later, during a dinner scene, she’ll be dressed in a shiny gold evening gown.  I’m painting the best picture I can here, people.  Work with me. 🙂

So this Desdemona is … well, she’s a woman. I think with the whole “stolen from her father” thing, Desdemona is often thought of in an Ophelia-like “this is just a child” sort of way.  Not here.  Here, Desdemona is a grown woman who stands up to her father.  Interesting choice.

One of the great things about Othello is that it’s so directly connected to human emotional response.  See that guy there? Yeah, he’s mad at the black guy.  So he’s gonna get that other guy drunk because he knows that when that dude gets drunk, he gets violent.  Cool, that guy got in a fight, now the black guy is pissed off and just fired him.  So he’s gonna go to his boss’s wife and try to get his job back, and the villain guy is going to use that to make the boss think his wife is cheating on him.  There’s not a great deal of politics (although the bits about war and geography and who’s been sent where are a little tricky to follow).  Basically, you get to see this guy at the top of the world brought down by his supposedly honest and trustworthy right-hand man, Iago.

I wonder if it was this production in particular doing something deliberate, but I never really noticed how much Shakespeare pounds us over the head with a hammer in this one.  It seems like every character, every time, referred to “honest Iago.”  It practically became a running joke, the more villainous he got and the more the people around him got so stupid, saying “Oh, Iago! Someone surely must have been whispering in Othello’s ear to turn him against me!  Since you’re so honest and trustworthy go figure out who could have done such a thing!”  There are many instances where you pretty much feel like everybody else on stage is stupid.  The scene where Iago doesn’t want to say Cassio slept with Desdemona, which then turns into “Welll….I shouldn’t say anything, but he had this dream where he said I love you Desdemona, and then he threw his leg over mine, and kissed me full on the mouth ….” The audience was laughing pretty hard at that.  How could Othello have been so stupid?

Speaking of Othello, he deteriorates nicely.  His perfectly tailored uniform becomes unbuttoned, his tie crooked.  He no longer stands at attention. He repeats himself, and he stutters.  One of my favorite scenes comes after Iago has planted the idea of Desdemona’s infidelity in Othello’s mind, and an increasingly crazed Othello pulls a gun on his “ancient”, saying (in appropriately Shakespearean terms), “You show me proof, motherf*cker. You call my wife a whore? You plant this idea in my head to drive me nuts? You bring me proof or you die.” 

Othello is not stupid, and that’s part of the point. He knows what he’s been told and that it is not proof.  But when he confronts Desdemona, and she can’t produce the handkerchief?  That, in his mind, is proof. The big death scene was pretty scary, as expected. It’s always weird when Desdemona seems to start the scene so calmly.  “Why are you planning to kill me, husband? What did I do?”  But by the time he actually means to go through with it, she’s screaming and begging for her life.  It’s pretty terrifying.  In this particular production (is it really a spoiler when talking about Shakespeare?), it takes a little while for her to go down, we’ll just say.  There’s a lot more that goes on than just some smothering with a pillow.

I like the ending for the action – Amelia spills the details, Iago kills her and escapes, and Othello kills himself.  I do not like all the talking, the emphasis on “We’re gonna torture you later, ok?  You there, don’t forget to torture that guy.  Trust us, we’re gonna torture him.”  Iago’s “I’ll never speak again” line I find hard to pull off.  This is one of those moments where he should be something other than human.  I prefer to go away thinking no, no amount of torture will make him talk.  When he speaks in the same tones he’s spoken throughout the play, he sounds like he’ll crack as soon as they’re off stage.

Since Carl mentioned the other day that the last lines of Othello are his favorite, I was waiting for them specifically.  He’s right; it’s a very good ending.  That whole scene is intriguing to me because here you’ve got a guy who killed his wife, thinking that he was in the right to do so, now surrounded by armed soldiers and having just discovered that he was completely wrong.  So once again, he does the “right” thing and suicides.  I like that part of the ending.  As always with Shakespeare, there’s the cleanup bits (“Don’t forget to torture that guy!”), which I think are always just a bit anti-climactic.

The best thing about a play like this is that afterward, we got to discuss it.  We talked about whether it’s a play about racism or not.  Iago never comes out and says, “I hate him because he’s black”, but man, there’s certainly some racially-charged language in there.  Someone refers to Othello as old “thick-lips”, among other things, and when Iago and Roderigo first wake Brabantio they’re making some pretty obscene beast references. 

Great show.  One of my favorites, by far, for many reasons.  I hope they do some more biggies in the coming years.