#voodoo macbeth

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The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Orson Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely Black cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the role of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director.

Shakespeare's play is about the downfall of a usurper in medieval Scotland, who is encouraged in his actions by three witches. The central idea behind Welles's production was to perform the text straight, but to use costumes and sets that alluded to Haiti in the 19th century, specifically during the reign of the slave-turned-emperor Henri Christophe. Although the main reason for this choice was that it was an appropriate setting for an all-black cast, Welles felt that it also enhanced the play's realism: he thought the production's popularity was partly due to the fact that the idea of voodoo was more credible to a contemporary audience than was medieval witchcraft.

In many productions, the character of Hecate, the Queen of the Witches, is often cut. Instead, Welles turned the character into a pivotal figure. Performed by Eric Burroughs as a huge man with a bullwhip,  Hecate presides over events as a ringmaster of magicians, and often closes scenes. Hecate ends the play with the line, "The charm's wound up", repeated from Act 1. Welles's 1948 film version of Macbeth, in which Hecate does not appear, also ends with this line.

The production used a single, unchanging set of a castle in a jungle. The backdrops featured stylized palm trees and skeleton imagery.

During the Great Depression, The federally-funded WPA (Works Projects Administration) created the Federal Theater Project, which was run by producer, playwright, and Vassar College theater professor Hallie Flanagan. Flanagan chose Rose McClendon to run the Negro Theater Unit in Harlem; McClendon (who was in failing health) hired John Houseman to co-direct the unit, and they in turn hired 20-year-old Orson Welles to produce Shakespeare’s Macbeth with an all-black cast (Houseman, who had already produced a Gertrude Stein opera with a predominately black cast).

Welles moved the play’s scenery from Scotland to Haiti (earning the production the nickname, “The Voodoo Macbeth”), and the production was controversial from the start. The WPA was criticized for wasting its money (”an exhibition of deluxe boondoggling”); McClendon was criticized for selecting Welles; and Welles was criticized for everything (no one could determine if Welles was ridiculing Shakespeare, his cast, or the public). Welles knew the controversy would bring publicity, for the play, but also for himself.

With a cast of more than 150, the Harlem Negro Theater Unit’s premiere performance on 14 April 1936 defied any and all expectation.

More than 10,000 people (white and black, at a time when almost all performances were segregated) crowded around Harlem’s Lafayette Theater on opening night, and when the performance ended, the crowd erupted into a 15-minute standing ovation.

After a 10-week run at the Lafayette, and another shorter run in Manhattan, the performance was taken to Hartford, Dallas, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Syracuse, performing to sold-out, integrated crowds across the country.

In 1938, the FTP experienced a funding cut — and once again eight thousand people were out of work in an instant. Its stunning theatrical legacy wasn’t just relief service, but artistic achievement of the greatest heights. Especially memorable is the so-called Voodoo Macbeth of 1936, an all-black production in Harlem that moved the action from Scotland to the Caribbean. An electrically revivified classic in terms both political and artistic, the director was none other than Orson Wells, who would later call the production the “great success in my life.”

all works created by Anthony Velonis in the 1930s