Since "The Elephant Man" is about to reopen, let's not forget the first actor who played him - Philip Anglim. He won a Tony award for the part and soon after disappeared from the Broadway stage. The reason? MACBETH.
The first production he did after The Elephant Man was a production of Macbeth at the Vivian Beaumont in Lincoln Center. He was dreadful. He was completely panned by the critics. If I remember correctly, it was gossiped that one of the producers of Macbeth was his lover and that quickly became the joke of the season. He never did another Broadway show. I'm attaching a link to the Times review of his Macbeth. A review doesn't get worse than that.
"What's missing from this performance are merely the bread-and-butter qualities of good acting: feeling, stage presence, physical, vocal and facial expressiveness."
"It's not that Mr. Anglim is misinterpreting the hero; there is no interpretation here at all. This is a Macbeth bereft of emotions - unless utter, dead coldness counts as such. The star's eyes neither make contact with those of his fellow actors nor look inward. His face is fixed in a blank, unchanging pose of mild nervousness, as if he feared he might be late for a train. His voice rarely varies in tone, and his body, which was so expressive as John Merrick, clumps about woodenly. His one, tardy attempt to summon up passion is the beginning of a sob on the line with which he greets news of his wife's death ('She should have died hereafter'). It's debatable whether the then-dazed Macbeth would start to cry at that point; in any case, Mr. Anglim turns his back on the audience rather than letting us see even the most tentative stirring of his heart."
NY Times review of Macbeth
Updated On: 8/24/14 at 11:37 AM