The Poster - more or less

Well there was a poll on the site with all of 8 votes ... and it had no impact on the final poster! (what do you expect of website polls?) Anyway courtesy of Julian here is the poster which will be made more modest to keep schools happy.

Teller's advice on bloody heads

This is a useful tip from Teller's Macbeth which I think I will take up for our production

Today we did a conference call about heads. In Shakespeare’s day, you’d go to work and see severed human heads on display on public structures to warn prospective crooks of the consequences of malfeasance.

Shakespeare introduces the dead Macbeth’s head right at the finale of the show. It was natural to Shakespeare. You wanna show a dead butcher? Bring out his head.

But in the modern theater, you don’t see a lot of heads. And for good reason. If the fake head (and, yes, I’m sorry; we’ll probably have to have to fake it, except maybe on the final performance) looks bad, you say, “How lame!” and it takes you out of the story. If it’s good, you say, “Wow, that’s a fine reproduction. I wonder how they cast it,” and you’re right out of the story. It’s a no-win situation.

So we’re looking for a way to get the horror without the distraction. At this point, we’re thinking of establishing the convention that severed heads are carried around in blood-soaked burlap bags. What’s nice about that is that this combines two awful images we’re seeing from the Middle East nowadays. We see terrorist prisoners with their heads in bags, and we see people being beheaded. Put ‘em together and you’ve got Macbeth.

Macbeth becomes a tyrant who rules by terror, so it makes sense he would display the heads (and maybe bodies) of uncooperative subjects.
http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellerspeaks/telleressayheads.html

Poster and images

Have settled on a concept of three women, in the mist and a spooky castle. Hardly original but striking and it covers the time issues in the production.

I'll post it when it's done.

Some images of Macbeth

Ian McKellan and Judi Dench. A great poster. Patrick Stewart as Macbeth.

We need to come back to the age of the Macbeths.

Magic

What is it that makes Macbeth so special?

It's the shortest of the great Shakespearean tragedies. It is accessible and has no subplots.
It is the story of one man's fatal flaw and his decline from hero to hated villain. It's full of blood.

Of the posters I've reviewed I see crowns, blood and heroic warriors.
http://images.google.co.nz/images?hl=en&q=macbeth+poster&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2


I love this one:
http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://admin.cru2.net/images/1184057953poster01_sml01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thebiggerpicture.biz/home.html&h=325&w=482&sz=70&hl=en&start=94&sig2=OG402Pp8afWk42oQVwFgQA&tbnid=bvCH7ajzfeE9DM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=129&ei=1aXLR8W4NZrWgQPHqeitCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmacbeth%2Bposter%26start%3D80%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN




And Macbeth is full of magic.

In the late 1600s the witches scenes were increased, songs added, and they were made to fly on hoists. When Samuel Pepys saw Macbeth he described it as a musical.

For me the witches and the magic are a key factor in the success and allure of the show. I'm sure I have heard of a production where the witches were written out, although I can't locate it.
This is close and would have been entertaining for it's odd take: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DD1F3FF934A1575AC0A967958260