The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.0961  Friday, 16 May 2003

From:           Kelley Costigan <
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Date:           Wednesday, 14 May 2003 22:11:23 -0700
Subject: 14.0943 Top One
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0943 Top One

>The great lost performance of our time is Olivier's Macbeth (1955), of
>which there is no audio or visual record other than a few posed Angus
>McBean photographs.  Olivier was to have filmed it, but the financing
>fell through.  As a result, I have never seen a satisfying performance
>of Macbeth, a statement unmodified by my having seen McKellen and Sher.
>To compensate, I have read everything that I can find about Olivier's
>performance, and I even once interviewed a member of the 1955 production
>crew.  But recreation in the mind's eye is a poor substitute for
>reality, just as today's reality is a poor substitute for Olivier.

Michael Mullin has done an illustrated promptbook of the production
which is a wonderful record of it.

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