Australian TV Plays: Macbeth (7 Sept 1960)

The ABC returns to Shakespeare after their Hamlet/Anthony and Cleopatra double. This one shot in Melbourne by William Sterling. They did it again in1 1965.

Plot

You know the plot for this, right?

Cast

Ken Goodlet as Macbeth
Keith Eden as Macduff
Christine Hill
Douglas Kelly as Duncan
Mark Kelly as Donalbain, King Duncan's son
Rod Milgate as Malcolm
Wynn Roberts as Banquo
Dinah Shearing as Lady Macbeth
Penelope Shelton as Lady Macduff
Michael Crosby, John Stewart as Macduff's sons
Peter Carver as Ross

Original play

It's one of the greatest plays of all time. A steady performer on Australian stages.

Segments of the play appeared on Australian radio in July 1960 for students. They also showed on TV in August 1960. It was on stage in Melbourne in 1960.

Other adaptations

It was adapted for Canadian TV in 1955.

Scenes were shot for the BBC in 1937. There was a version in 1949.

Neil Hutchison produced a radio feature on the play in 1959 see here.

When it was being made, Judith Anderson and Maurice Evans were appearing in a two hour film version in Scotland.

Production

Macbeth had several months of planning and rehearsals. Nine sets were used. There was location filming at Beaconsfield and Cape Schank (for the witches scene).

In May 1960 it was reported William Sterling wanted an international star to play Lady Macbeth. He said "This primitive play is particularly suited to television. It deals with the fortunes of one person and moves swiftly with doomful certainty to the conclusion involving no side issues. Macbeth will have a cast of hundreds, including - with the co operation of the Army - a platoon of soldiers in the spectacular Birnam Woods to Dunsinane finale which will be filmed on location. It will be a dramatic extravaganza in every sense". Robert Hughes was writing the music.

The movie star was Anne Baxter, then married to an Australian.

In June 1960 it was annouced William Sterling signed Dinah Shearing to play Lady Macbeth opposite Goodlet, Eden and Wynn Roberts. Shearing's husband Rodney Milgate would appear. The play would be 90 minutes. "This conforms with the latest trend in Canada and America to keep Shakespearean telecasts to this timing," said Sterling. "To conserve space because of the large number of sets required, we will build several double decker sets for Macbeth. This will give us more height than we've ever had before and will help us achieve continuity between interior and exterior scenes. One whole set area will be taken up with Macbeth's Dunsinane Castle. This includes banquet hall, passages, stairway, parapet and grove."

It was set in the eleventh century and was described as akin to Orson Welles' 1948 film production of the play. Barry Creyton has a small role. He recalled:

I relocated to Melbourne in 1960, when I was twenty. I was there only a year, but did many radio plays, a revue and my first TV production – I literally carried a spear in Macbeth. This, after I’d had so much success in my hometown (laughs). Brian James, the actor, was a friend and he helped me find a rooming house. The landlady was one of those great funny women who told me her entire life story when I unpacked my bag. At the end, she said, “Oh, by the way, you need to be at ABC studios right now, they want you in Macbeth.” I took a cab to the ABC studio – and held a spear, and I was on television. It was my very first day in Melbourne. Kind of an overwhelming day (laughs).

Robert Hughes, a Scottish born composer with the ABC, wrote the music. He said he did it ten nights and two weekends after receiving the script from William Sterling. The music score went for 20 minutes. There were 31 different cues, the longest running two minutes. Sterling called Hughes' work "very wonderful". The Victorian Symphony Orchestra played it.

Cameraman - Peter Purvis.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the production as "visually efficient" but also "a dreadful warning of what can happen when a producer becomes frightened of a great text... a torrent of gabble and shouting. Some of the most concise dramatic poetry in all Shakespeare received treatment worthy of the race results."

The Age said it was an "inordinately successful presentation."

Another writer in the same paper called it "a very gallant effort".

In its year review of drama, that paper said it was one of the "outstanding" productions of the year

TV Week called it "a magnificent achievement".

TV Times called it "probably the best Australian production so far shown" .