Before Hollywood director Orson Welles ascended to fame as producer, director and star of Citizen Kane (1941), he struggled as an actor and writer for radio. In 1936 at the age of 20, untested and battling addiction, Welles was enlisted by John Houseman, director of the Negro Theatre Unit in New York, to direct the first all-Black cast production of Macbeth on the stage. Houseman, along with co-director Rose McClendon, took a chance on the volatile Welles who convinced them to reimagine the Scottish play as a Haitian production daringly starring an all-Black cast. Performed in Harlem at the Lafayette Theater, the production known as Voodoo Macbeth became a landmark in African-American theatrical history. Asked in 1982 about the project, Welles said, "By all odds, my great success in my life was that play, because the opening night there were five blocks in which all traffic was stopped. You couldn't get near the theatre in Harlem. Everybody who was anybody in the Black or white world was there. And when the play ended there were so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open, and the audience came up on the stage to congratulate the actors. And that was magical." An equally magical production brings the story of the making of Voodoo Macbeth to the screen, some 86 years later. Voodoo Macbeth represents the collaboration of 10 directors, eight writers and three producers, each embodying different perspectives, coming together to create a common vision.
Voodoo Macbeth
In 1936 Harlem, the first all-Black cast production of 'Macbeth' struggles to make it to opening night amid the downward spiral of their young and untested director - Orson Welles.
