“All’s Well that Ends Welles”: Orson Welles and the “Voodoo” "Macbeth"

Authors

  • Robert Sawyer East Tennessee State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2016-0007

Keywords:

multicultural, Caribbean, Orson Welles, nationality, voodoo, Shakespeare, „Macbeth”, race

Abstract

The Federal Theatre Project, which was established in 1935 to put unemployed Americans back to work after the Great Depression, and later employed over 10,000 people at its peak, financed one particularly original adaptation of Shakespeare: the “voodoo” Macbeth directed by Orson Welles in 1936. Debuting in Harlem with an all-black cast, the play’s setting resembled a Haiti-like island instead of ancient Scotland, and Welles also supplemented the witches with voodoo priestesses, sensing that the practice of voodoo was more relevant, if not more realistic, for a contemporary audience than early modern witchcraft. My essay will consider how the terms “national origins” and “originality” intersect in three distinct ways vis-a-vis this play: The Harlem locale for the premier, the Caribbean setting for the tragedy, and the federal funding for the production.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Anderegg, Michael. Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture. New York: Columbia UP, 1999.
Google Scholar

Atkinson, Brooks. “‘Macbeth,’ or Harlem Boy Goes Wrong, Under Auspices of Federal Theatre Project.” The New York Times. (15 April 1936): 15.
Google Scholar

Benamou, Catherine L. It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey. University of California Press, 2007.
Google Scholar

Callow, Simon. Orson Welles, Volume 1: The Road to Xanadu. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.
Google Scholar

Corbould, Clare. “Streets, Sounds and Identity in Interwar Harlem.” Journal of Social History 40.4 (2007): 859-894. Print.
Google Scholar

Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. London and New York: Verso, 1996. Print.
Google Scholar

Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Google Scholar

France, Richard, ed. Orson Welles on Shakespeare: The W.P.A and Mercury Theatre Playscripts. Forward by Simon Callow. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
Google Scholar

France, Richard. “The ‘Voodoo’ Macbeth of Orson Wells. Yale Theatre 5.3 (1974): 66-78.
Google Scholar

Hammond, Percy. Review of the “Voodoo” Macbeth. New York Herald Tribune (16 April 1936): 25.
Google Scholar

Hilb, Benjamin. “Afro-Haitian-American Ritual Power: Vodou in the Welles-FTP Voodoo Macbeth.” Shakespeare Bulletin 32.4 (Winter 2014): 649-681.
Google Scholar

Houseman, John. Run-Through: A Memoir. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.
Google Scholar

Hughes, Langston and Milton Meltzer. Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment. Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967.
Google Scholar

Johnston, Alva and Fred Smith. “How to Raise a Child: The Education of Orson Welles, Who Didn’t Need it.” Saturday Evening Post (part 1, Jan. 20, 1940; part 2, Jan. 27, 1940; part 3, February 3, 1940).
Google Scholar

Leaming, Barbara. Orson Welles: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1985.
Google Scholar

Kliman, Bernice W. Macbeth. 2nd Ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Print.
Google Scholar

McCloskey, Susan. “Shakespeare, Orson Welles, and the Voodoo Macbeth.” Shakespeare Quarterly 36.4 (Winter 1985): 406-416.
Google Scholar

Ottley, Roi. Review of Voodoo Macbeth. The Amsterdam News (18 April 1936):8.
Google Scholar

Review of Native Son. Time (7 April 1941).
Google Scholar

Rippy, Marguerite. Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects: A Postmodern Perspective. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009.
Google Scholar

Rooney, Tom. “‘A Thousand Shylocks’: Orson Wells and The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Survey 59 (2006): 63-68.
Google Scholar

Tynan, Kenneth. “Orson Wells.” In Focus on Orson Wells. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice H-Hall, Inc., 1976. 8-27.
Google Scholar

Smith, Mona Z. Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee. New York: Faber and Faber, 2004.
Google Scholar

Smith, Wendy. “Voodoo Macbeth.” http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fdtp/ftsmith00.html
Google Scholar

Welles, Orson, ed. Macbeth. In France 2001.
Google Scholar

Welles, Orson. “Race Hate Must be Outlawed.” Free World. July 1944. Online at Wellesnet.com. http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=1543
Google Scholar

Wells, Orson and Roger Hill, eds. Everybody’s Shakespeare. Three Plays. Edited for Reading and Arranged for Staging. Woodstock, Illinois: The Todd Press, 1938.
Google Scholar

Wright, Richard. Letter to Orson Welles and John Housman. 19 May 1940. Welles Mss.in the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana.
Google Scholar

Downloads

Published

2016-04-22

How to Cite

Sawyer, R. (2016). “All’s Well that Ends Welles”: Orson Welles and the “Voodoo” "Macbeth". Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance, 13(28), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2016-0007

Issue

Section

Articles

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.