‘MacBird’ Indifferently Received

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 13

‘MacBird’ Indifferently Received

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, April 12. A packed house on Monday night gave an indifferent reception to Joan Littlewood’s production of “MacBird,” the much publicised American satire on President Johnson and the assassination of President Kennedy. Barbara Garson, the 25-year-old University of California graduate, was credited on the programme as sole

author and came to London for the production—but it turned out to be a completely new version. Anyone trying to connect the show—presented at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, in London’s East End with the original at the Village Gate Underground Cafe off Broadway soon gave up.

Only a few shreds of the parodping of Shakespeare’s blank verse from “Macbeth” and other plays remained. The show was a typical Joan Littlewood entertainment, with songs, dances, new dialogue and new characters.

Most notable addition was “Jacquie” called in the programme—like her husband John-Ken O’Dunc. She became “Kennedy” in the dialogue in the same way as Macbird was called “Johnson." Another new character was “MacNamara,” apparently meant to represent the United States Secretary of Defence. Miss Littlewood marked her return to the East End with her favourite device—having actors rushing through the auditorium or speaking from a stage box as well as on stage.

She brought in hooters, drum-majorettes, cowboy songs and American Civil War tunes including “Marching Through Georgia.” But the satirical point of parodying “Macbeth” seemed lost and all that remained was an anti-Johnson, anti-Admin-istration and anti-Vietnam war show. The theatre has been turned into a members-only club because Britain’s censor, the Lord Chamberlain, refused to license the play on the ground that “it presented the Head of State of a friendly power in an unfavourable light”