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Voodoo Macbeth - Orson Welles' production, featuring an all-Black cast, was an outstanding success. [1]
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Date: 2025-03-03
How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment. Today's Coffee Hour is brought to you by Voodoo Macbeth.
W.P.A. Federal Theatre Project, designed by Anthony Velonis. Facsimile of color silkscreen poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation of "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare.
While reading the recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine I came across a wonderful article about a theatre production of Macbeth featuring an all-Black cast adapted and directed by Orson Welles. I thought it would make a good topic for today’s coffee Hour. I then found the article on the Smithsonian Blog.
“On the night of April 14, 1936, traffic of Seventh Avenue near 131st Street in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood was at a virtual standstill, the roads jammed for ten blocks. The sort of throngs you’s expect for a generational prize fight- all of them hoping to get a ticket the most sensational show in town, a curious adaptation of Macbeth, directed by a dramaturgical wunderkind named Orson Welles under the aegis of the Federal Theater Project, a New Deal program designed to help support the arts.” From Smithsonian Blog: Orson Welles’ All-Black Version of ‘Macbeth’ Excited Theatergoers Nationwide by Brandon Tensley.
Jump the fold for some pictures, a short video, and a bit more on the theatre production of Voodoo Macbeth. And this is an open thread so you can talk about anything on your mind.
What is for dinner? How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment.
This article is continued after the fold and community links
I have had mixed feelings about Orson Welles, perhaps due to his image of selling wine. I thought his radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds was a clever prank. And, I never got around to seeing Citizen Kane. Other than than that I knew nothing about him. So, I was surprised to learn about Voodoo Macbeth.
The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Orson Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely Black cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the role of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director. Wikipedia: Voodoo Macbeth
The short article both in print and online was absolutely glowing about the reception by the Black community. It stated the critics and public loved the performance, the costuming, set design, and the Voodoo drumming that set the atmosphere.
Photograph of Jack Carter (Macbeth), Kenneth Renwick (Second Murderer) and George Nixon (First Murderer) in the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem.
A sparkle always came to Welles’ eye whenever he thought back on the production. “By all odds my great success in my life was that play,” he recalled in a 1982 BBC interview. “Everybody who was anybody in the Black or white world was there. And when the play ended there were so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open, and the audience came up on the stage to congratulate the actors.” From Smithsonian Blog: Orson Welles’ All-Black Version of ‘Macbeth’ Excited Theatergoers Nationwide by Brandon Tensley.
Below: The closing four minutes of the production are preserved in the 1937 film, We Work Again.
The Works Project Administration provided economic stimulus during the Great Depression and, under its aegis was Federal Project Number One, was responsible for generating jobs in the arts for which the Federal Theatre Project was created. The Negro Theatre Unit was split into two halves, the "Contemporary Branch" to create theater on contemporary black issues, and the "Classic Branch", to perform classic drama. The aim was to provide a point of entry into the theater workforce for black writers, actors and stagehands, and to raise community pride by performing classic plays without reference to the color of the actors.
Wikipedia: Voodoo Macbeth
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