For some theater fans, the 1936 production of the “Voodoo Macbeth” (as it became commonly known) is the stuff of legend. Funded by the Federal Theater Project, which gave financial aid to the struggling theater community during the Great Depression, the “Voodoo Macbeth” starred a cast of black performers in an imaginative new staging of William Shakespeare’s so-called “Scottish Play,” set in Haiti in the early 1800s.
The show was a mammoth success, critically acclaimed and financially successful, and not for nothing, it was one of the more noteworthy early accomplishments of a 20-year-old thespian and director named Orson Welles.
While Welles’s theater days have been the subject of biopics before, with films like “Cradle Will Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles” dramatizing his imaginative stagings, the new film “Voodoo Macbeth” may be the first to properly depict this particular landmark production. It’s attractively filmed and, mostly, solidly performed, taking some historical liberties but otherwise getting the gist of the tale out in the open for new generations to discover and appreciate.
And although the film is credited to ten (!) directors and eight (another !) screenwriters, it’s an impressively cohesive motion picture. This is not a scattershot production, nor does it play like a game of exquisite corpse. The successes are uniform, the vision consistent, and even the parts worth criticizing are confidently presented. In an industry where conventional wisdom states too many cooks spoil the soup, “Voodoo Macbeth” is a rather hearty stew.
The story picks up quickly, as celebrated actor Rose McClendon (Inger Tudor) has convinced producer John Houseman to use funds for the Negro Theater Unit to produce Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” featuring an all-black cast. Houseman’s primary contribution is the young director, Welles, whose ambition and talent are matched only by his hubris. And his boozing. And his inadequacies as a husband. And although the movie presents his story as a journey of personal growth, he starts out pretty danged racist. He even turns down the offer because “There aren’t enough negro actors who understand Shakespeare, let alone speak it.”
Welles is portrayed by Jewell Wilson Bridges, making his big-screen debut. Bridges can absolutely carry a film and is convincing as a talented blowhard with a lot of growing up to do. But to “Voodoo Macbeth’s” detriment, he’s never quite convincing as Welles. He neither looks the part, sounds the part, nor does his physicality particularly evoke any of the famed thespian’s well-known qualities. If the film didn’t introduce Welles in an amusing bit of biographical foreshadowing — as he argues with a radio director who wants him to place emphasis on unusual words in an advertisement (as the real Welles would do later in life) — you might be forgiven for thinking he was playing some other “Orson Welles” and not the famous one.
Welles assembles a mostly white crew and is promptly told to fire almost all of them, including his wife Virginia (June Schreiner, “Chicago Med”), because the purpose of the Negro Theater Unit was not to provide theatrical work for white people. Over the course of the film, Welles makes romantic advances to his stars, balks at a gay actor playing the lead role (“I can’t send out a queen for a king!”) and practically ruins his marriage. “Voodoo Macbeth” deserves credit for taking the myth of Welles’ early theatrical genius down to Earth a bit, for not giving Welles too much credit for the group’s efforts and for using this story of inclusivity in the early 1930s as a parallel for the modern entertainment industry, which still — nearly 100 years later — has a lot of work to do in the same department.
The cast is rife with standout performances. Inger Tudor is a captivating actor playing a captivating actor, injecting the film with much needed gravitas and dignity. Wrekless Watson finds sensitivity and intensity in the role of Cuba Johnson, a fictionalized version of actor Canada Lee, whose identity was seemingly altered to add a probably-apocryphal love story to the proceedings. If only all of the performances were as rich and effective; Hunter Bodine (“Karen”), who plays none-too-subtly villainous Congressman Martin Dies Jr., and June Schreiner play their roles with a less convincing and mannered archness.
A few hiccups aside — and some historical inaccuracies that are likely to annoy only the most passionate theater fans — the vast majority of “Voodoo Macbeth” is an entirely handsome, professional production. Bash Achkar’s cinematography is bright and welcoming, telling the story without distraction. The production design, art direction and set decoration evoke some of the more attractive (albeit tightly budgeted) period pieces of the turn of the 21st century. And the music by Jongnic Bontemps (“Wedding Season”) effectively amplifies the drama, except for a single, giggly moment when a climactic line of heavy-handed foreshadowing for Welles’ film career cues up an intense orchestral theme, à la the sequel tease from the end of “Batman Begins.”
What’s perhaps most remarkable about “Voodoo Macbeth” is how this satisfying if sometimes inconsistent biopic plays like a manifesto. It imagines a world in which the artistic community is expanding to a point where all voices can be heard, opportunities are available for everyone, and the people who need to change their deeply problematic ways aren’t immediately capable of doing so but (at least eventually) willing. By connecting the needs of the entertainment industry today with an inspiring story from the cultural past, it’s an optimistic reminder that history can sometimes repeat itself in good ways too — even though it’s still a tragedy that it has to.
“Voodoo Macbeth” opens in theaters Oct. 21 via Lightyear Entertainment.
