LA TheatreWorks: MacBeth

by William Shakespeare (performed by LA TheatreWorks)

 

 

 

The Scottish Play

I have been in love with this play since fifth grade. Miss Weil was new to the faculty in a school where the whole faculty seemed to have been moved in with the furniture when the school was built in 1898. She loved Shakespeare and she introduced her students to the bard. Our 5th grade play was a very pared down production of MacBeth --in iambic pentameter. The first real production I ever saw was the Maurice Evans/Judith Anderson production which played as a special feature in the movie theater near our house; I was in junior high. Since then, I have seen a number of different productions including the Patrick Stewart production on TV (too much angry shouting and not enough finesse), the Kelsey Grammar touring production (meh) and a local repertory company production just a few years ago (not their best Shakespeare production). I'm still looking for another production that matches the Evans/Anderson.

I just listened to the Los Angeles Theatre Works production of MacBeth (cast and crews given below). In the 1990s, LATW made the move from live stage performances to audio recordings along with radio-theatre style live performances . At this point, they have over 500 plays in their catalog of recordings -- classics, new voices, etc.

This is one the better productions I have heard. It is not perfect. A lot of dialogue has been cut and it moves along quickly, with no staging to deal with. It isn't the angry spitting of Patrick Stewart, thank goodness, nor the spineless Kelsey Grammar production. James Marsters was masterful; his MacBeth was as cold as ice -- much more calculating and threatening than Grammar or Stewart. I was not fighting to make out the words as I do for many stage productions these days. All of the actors were crystal clear, no RADA/RS cultivated accents that seem to be the hallmark of modern productions (even in the US) --which is really a laugh since Shakespearean-era English probably sounded more like American than it did like today's British accent.

With over 500 titles to choose from, it is definitely time to check out more LATW.

Credits:

Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood, in May of 2011.

Adapted and directed for radio by: Martin Jarvis

Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg

An L.A. Theatre Works Full-Cast Performance Featuring:

Josh Cooke as Banquo and others

JD Cullum as Macduff and Second Murderer

Dan Donohue as Ross

Jeannie Elias as Second Witch and others

Chuma Hunter-Gault as Lennox and Servant

James Marsters as Macbeth

Jon Matthews as Malcolm

Alan Shearman as Angus and others

André Sogliuzzo as Donalbain, Third Witch, and others

Kate Steele as Lady Macduff, First Witch, and Apparition

Kristoffer Tabori as Duncan and others

Joanne Whalley as Lady Macbeth

Associate Producers: Anna Lyse Erikson, Myke Weiskopf

Recording Engineer/Sound Designer/Editor: Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood

Sound Effects Artist: Tony Palermo

 

Favorite Narrators -- and Least Favorite

 

YOU can read me the phone book

First and foremost, the GiGis  -- the two most prolific of audiobook readers. There is a reason they get all those gigs.

• George Guidall
• Grover Gardner

And then the rest of the best, they bring the stories to life without taking them over

• Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (reads Rivers of London series)
  
  
  
• Lisette Lecat 
• The late great Edward Hermann
• Tony Britton
• Davina Porter
• Simon Prebble
• Scott Brick
• Barbara Rosenblat
• Wil Wheaton (yes, of Star Trek fame)

 

The ones I avoid

• Ulli Birve (terrible pacing; reads Heyer mysteries)
• Elizabeth Klett (American with limited arsenal of British accents)
• William Dufris -- whiny females
• John Wells -- terrible at voices; not bad at straight reading
• Lorna Raver -- makes a 40 year old woman sound like a doddering old woman
• Authors, other than actors, reading their own books, even if they are professional public speakers
  

What makes a good narrator

I have been listen to books almost exclusively for the past 15 years and in that period of time I have read/listened to close to a thousand different productions. I now have a fairly idea of what I think makes a good narrator -- or at least what I hope for when I listen.

A good narrator does not click, clack, snort, swallow, sniff, smack or hiss.

A good narrator knows how to properly phrase a sentence, knows where to pause and where to breath. Pacing is important. When it is a great narrator, it is so natural that you don't even know it is happening.

A good narrator makes age appropriate choices for voice characterizations. A 40 years old woman should not sound as if she is on her death bed.

A good narrator must know how to pronounce "dour" -- and it does not rhyme with "sour." Pronunciation is important and I am not just taking about the words that we learned to read before we ever heard them used in a sentence -- like respite, antipodes, debacle. Narrators need to do their homework. They need to know how to properly pronounce every single proper noun in the book they are reading and if they don't know, they need to look it up. A constant barrage of mispronounced words detracts from the reading experience.

But, it is not enough to get the technical stuff right --and that is what separates a good narrator from a great narrator --

A good narrator does not intrude into the narrative but carries it along as if he or she isn't even there. A good narrator may be an actor but there is a big difference between sitting behind a mic and being on stage in front of audience. George Guidall pointed out in a 2017 NYT interview that you have to have "an emotional underpinning." and that "there’s a rhythm to speech in terms of what’s implied. If it’s raining in the book, there’s got to be something about the voice that evokes the rain.”