Jun 29, 2010

McNulty's Lear-a-Thon

One night many years ago, I took in two SoCal Macbeths within six hours, give or take: First, Shakespeare Orange County's traditional version, which had the advantage of casting two of my favorite actors, Jenna Cole as Lady M and Ron Campbell as MacDuff; then a midnight performance at Beyond Baroque in Venice of an ultra-experimental version by a bunch of young upstarts with Chicago credits, if memory serves (a production notable also for the casting of L.A. Reader critic Patrick Corcoran as a white-faced Hecate). I wrote this double-Mac experience up for Back Stage West--a clip, as far as I can tell, that's lost to the ravages of time.

I was reminded of my Scottish night by Charlie McNulty's triple-Lear review--a flurry of Shakespeare from which, hearteningly and unsurprisingly, he plucks Bart DeLorenzo's double-cast Antaeus production as most worthy.

UPDATE: Patrick Corcoran has written to help me recall that that wild Venice Macbeth was directed by Dan Ward, starred his wife Leslie as Lady M, and featured in its soundscape both the running of multiple vacuum cleaners and Portishead's "Glory Box."

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