Can someone please put this play out of its misery? Following the production of Macbeth that ran from January to March at Chicago Shakespeare and the production of Macbeth produced by Babes With Blades that ran in April and May, there is a production at First Folio Theatre running in July and August. Also in July and August, Idle Muse Theater Company is producing an adaptation of Macbeth that it's calling Shotgun Shakespeare: What the Weird Sisters Saw. And it turns out that City Lit Theater is holding auditions for a production of Macbeth that will see the light in January and February.Now, call me fussy, but I think five productions of the same play within one year in a relatively small geographic area is too much. And I don't want to overstate my power as a theater blogger, but I will say this: No more. I forbid it. If you are reading this and you are a member of a theater company and you are considering producing Macbeth at any time before the year 2020, you will abstain, for I now decree a decade-long moratorium of this play in the Chicagoland area. Those who feel withdrawal pains because of a lack of exposure to the play are invited to rent the Orson Welles or Roman Polanski or Akira Kurosawa adaptations. Or maybe you can just read the fucking thing.
Those who defy my wishes will live to regret it. I'm not sure how. I haven't figured it out yet. Frankly, I wish I could ban productions of all Shakespeare plays for a decade, but I think the best thing to do instead is refer theater companies to a couple of websites that I think will help them. You see, plays did not stop being written when Shakespeare died. You can find scripts from the Dramatists Play Service or Samuel French, order them for a small fee and read them. You can also invite playwrights to send their scripts directly to you. If you really like them, you can produce them. Or you can slide into irrelevance by producing Macbeth over and over again, cease to exist and no one will miss you. You have been warned.
(EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to Nick Keenan, who pointed out that Greasy Joan & Co. produced Macbeth in April of 2008, and there was also Court Theatre's presentation of the SITI Company production of Radio Macbeth last November. That makes seven productions in 21 months.)
10 comments:
OK, i'll say it. You're being 'fussy'
Eight... there was another start-up company that produced it at The Building Stage in August-Septemberish of '08. Unfortunately, I don't remember the company off the top of my head.
We had an over-abundance of Macbeth here in the SF Bay Area too - minus Siti Company. Wonder if this is a country-wide thing.
Shotgun looks like enough of a different adaptation not to count in my opinion. We don't count "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" as a production of Hamlet, after all. You still make a good point.
This is the wrong play to try to put a curse on, Rob. I'm just saying, be careful going up and down stairs until this story has cycled of your front page.
Nine, if you count college productions: Oakton Community College did it in spring of '08.
Full disclosure: I did the sound design for that production. And I had a darn good time doing it, too. So there.
ban productions of all shakespeare plays for a decade? congratulations. with that comment, your half-ass blog has now officially slid into irrelevance.
Does your lack of a name contribute to your inability to appreciate tongue-in-cheek humor? Better check with your therapist, o nameless one.
And boy, oh boy, oh courageously Anonymous one. At the very least anonymously assault Rob with proper grammar. I am certain that you meant "half-assed" rather than "half-ass," which is really nothing more than an unfortunate anatomical abnormality.
Thank you, Matthew! And just as a matter of clarification, I write with ALL my ass.
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