Word: macbeths
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Weaver's final duel with Macduff is much too tame, particularly for those who saw Christopher Plummer's breathtaking swordplay in Cyrano recently. At the end, he pulls out a dagger and seems about to commit suicide when he falls off a parapet; suicide is something no real Macbeth would entertain...
...tiny bouquet, however, for one line-reading. When Macbeth starts up the stairs to kill the king, and a bell rings, almost all editions have him say, "Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell/That summons thee to heaven, or to hell." Weaver says, "me to hell." This is an emendation I have always found rather appealing. Aside from the internal rhyme of the contrasting pronouns, it implies that the saintly king will surely achieve salvation and that Macbeth fully realizes the enormity of what he is about to do. It was a pleasure to hear this reading used...
Rosemary Murphy, also brought in for only one role, emphasizes the sensual side of Lady Macbeth. She enjoys wearing a revealing gown with an open V down to the navel. She likes physical touching: the feel of her own or Macbeth's hands running down her skin, the tousling of Macbeth's hair with her affectionate fingers...
Vocally, however, she is not strong enough--the same fault she showed here a decade ago when trying the not unsimilar part of Goneril in King Lear. In talking of the murder plot, when Macbeth asks, "If we should fail?," her reply--"We fail?"--lacks the foreceful scorn, the reassuring incredulity needed to prop his weakening resolve. A sensual Lady Macbeth is perfectly valid, but the role requires a decided steak of masculinity, such as captured so imposingly in the portrayals of Dame Judith Anderson, Mrs. Tore Segelcke, and Siobhan McKenna...
JACK Gwillim is a kindly, virtuous King Duncan; and it is a felicitous touch to have him embrace Macbeth before retiring to his final sleep. Kurt Garfield's bleeding Captain sounds more Jewish than Scottish, Theodore Sorel's Angus is poorly spoken too, and Richard Backus' Donalbain is weak. Jeanne Bartlett is adequate as the ill-fated Lady Macduff, and William Larsen's old Siward is a decided asset. Macduff's son (Glenn Zachar) is far too old; so is Fleance (Keith McDermott), who seems to be assisted in his escape by the mysterious Third Murderer engaged to kill...