Macbeth help

[Plum]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:36pm

I can't believe I'm doing this.

If you were casting a production of Macbeth, who would you use as Malcolm, Macduff, and Banquo? The actors don't have to be alive or even the right age- anything goes. But I'm really stumped because those characters...don't have much character. It's the Macbeths that seem to have a monopoly on all the personality in that play. Help?

[WOSQ]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:41pm

You put your best actors into the worst roles. Any half wit can play a good role. Its all there. It takes talent to make something out of an underwritten one.

And you tell them why you're putting them into a supporting role. Flattery still works wonders anywhere.

Updated On: 11/10/04 at 04:41 PM

[B.B. Wolf]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:42pm

Malcolm - Matthew Broderick
MacDuff - Al Pacino (an odd choice, but MacDuff has to be capable of some seriously, righteous anger)
Banquo - young Jason Robards

[Plum]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:48pm

WOSQ- this isn't a real production, obviously. :) Just a school assignment that really doesn't mean much, but I have to complete. I've gone through a lot of good actors, but it's hard to think of one that makes you go "that's perfect" when you don't have much more than a faint mental outline of the characters' personalities. Updated On: 11/10/04 at 04:48 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:52pm

malcolm - norman reedus (six ways to sunday era variety, right mixture of youth, indecision, confusion and violence that you're not sure if he'll work out but you think that he might)

banquo - gary sinise (he's almost exactly what you'd want as king, certainly a threat to big mac, but just off enough to be believeable as getting whacked out)

macduff - brendan gleeson (because he's a bad mofo and ya gotta be a mad mofo to take out big mac)

[B.B. Wolf]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 5:05pm

I agree that these three characters are not given much in the way of development. But all three are very great characters. MacDuff for the most part is a two-dimensional catalyst type character. His purpose is to kill MacBeth. The scene where his wife and son are killed is the only real impetus he has for the whole play. Malcolm, however, has some great stuff to play with. He and Donalbain do the opposite of what they are advised and do not consort with the men at Mac's castle. Instead they go to England and Ireland, respectively. So, Malcolm is inteliigent, suspicious, and pragmatic and knows that he would be in danger as well if he stayed, which leads me to believe that he is a bit weak and by no means a soldier. He also doesn't return in the play until MacDuff is securely on his side; he has some muscle with him now and can play the role he's been taught: Commander-in-chief.
Banquo, I think, just needs to be intrinsically likable. He's very concerned with how everything Mac is doing is perceived by everyone else. And, most importantly, he, Mac's best friend, is the FIRST to suspect him of the murder of Duncan. What does that say about him?
Just some thoughts.

[Westopher]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 7:41pm

Perhaps the hardest question is, who would you cast as the Third Murderer? Now we get into examining the text...

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 9:37pm

There is a theory that Shakespeare wrote the play so that the three actors who played the witches could also play the murderers. That is why the third murderer stumbles on ever so briefly. He had to fill out the symmetry.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 9:38pm

By the way, I would love to see Mel Gibson take a shot at Macbeth and Angelica Houston play his wife.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 10:00pm

Thanks for the help, guys. :) Class is over, and now the real work begins- I have 2 weeks to make a set design model for the play. Oy.