DD135700

DD135700

DD135700 is the inside fold of the theatre programme for the 1971 Greenwich Macbeth.

The cover is DD135629.

Transcript

THE CAST

MACBETH                    Alan Dobie
LADY MACBETH               Hildegard Neil
BANQUO                     Bernard Lloyd
MACDUFF                    Bill Stewart
DUNCAN                     Llewellyn Rees
MALCOLM                    Richard Gale
WITCH/LADY MACDUFF         Romy Baskerville
WITCH                      Yvonne Coulette
WITCH/GENTLEWOMAN          Sally Mates
FLEANCE/YOUNG SWARD        Paul Aston
YOUNG MACDUFF              Christopher Reynolds
PORTER/SEYTON/MURDERER     Jack Chissick
MURDERER/SERGEANT/SWARD    John Pollendine
MURDERER/DOCTOR/OLD MAN    Edward Higgins
DONALBAIN/CAITHNESS        Robert Lister
ANGUS/LORD                 Maurice Walsh
ROSS                       Peter Marinker
LENNOX                     Robert Tayman
SERVANT                    Tim Heald

EWAN HOOPER
Writes...

We don't hear anu of those pious platitudes from Macbeth that come
so pat to our own dictator generals. Not a word about rooting out
corruption or preserving Western civilisation or ensuring free elections;
no pretense that the rule of King Macbeth will be more glorious or
more just than the rule of King Duncan. What he wants is power. He
taked the golden round because it's there.

But MACBETH isn't a modern play only because it's about a military
coup d'etat. We can smile at the politician in Duncan rewarding
Macbeth, embracing Banquo, but nominating his son to succeed him.
We know others who have faced Macduff's agonising decision -
whether to risk discovery by taking his family with him when he
joins the government in exile or leave them behind in danger. Did
De Gaulle test his Free French supporters as Malcolm tests Macduff?
Certainly he must have had visitors in the pleasant garden in
Chislehurst who were equally likely to be the enemy's agents.

But Macbeth is truly contemporary because, although he knows that
every logical reason is against killing Duncan, his wife can still lead
him to believe that he can become above punishment, that he can
inherit a sunlit kingdom where there is no morality; where man can
be God if he dares. A country where the end of life is to experience
to the utmost, where man can be superman, and his whim is the only
religion.

This is what brings Macbeth as near to us as Adolph Hitler or Charles
Manson. And it's only a step from Macbeth's blasted heath to thise
shallow graves on Ian Brady's moor.

But MACBETH isn;'t just about a mass murderer and a dictator. It's
a tragedy of a man divided against himself, whose balance between
good and evil is so finely set that a touch can send him tumbling into
a sleepless nightmare that must be lived through until death at last
can bring him peace. The touch could so easily have been the other
way.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Opening on Thursday, 1st April at 7.30 p.m. is Peter Nichols' eagerly
awaited new play FORGET-ME-NOT-LANE. It Stars Anton Rosgers,
Michael Bates, Joan Hickson, and Priscilla Morgan.

Peter Nichols describes it as 'a collection of humorour, serious and
dramatic selections'. They are of a highly personal nature - and
recall childhood memories, missed opportunities, the agony of
young live, wasted sexual encounters. Mr Nichols writes of the
uncertainty of youth, of growing up in the war years when Churchill,
Vera Lynn, Woodbine cigarettes and gas masks were household
words. Family life is depicted - a salesman father with puritanical
philosophies. Then on from childhood to manhood - marriage, and
the circle of life with its frightening inevitability continues.

Peter Nichols' rare gift for dialogue, his ability to set down truthfully -
and without prejudice, sometimes painful memories, is beautifully
expressed in FORGET-ME-NOT LANE. Michael Blakemore, who
directed Peter Nicols' two previously acclaimed plays, A DAY IN
THE DEATH OF JOE EGG at the Comedy Theatre and THE
NATIONAL HEALTH at the National Theatre, once again renews
his asssociation with the author by directing the new play.