Macbeth
1981: Arthur Allan Seidelman

Part of a series of nine Shakespeare plays done initially for schools called “The Shakespeare Plays”, in an attempt to be straightforward and accessible, this treads a fine line between being the brilliant and the boring. The goal of the series was apparently to make unexceptionable (but also unexceptional) versions of some plays, set in (more or less) traditional costumes and delivered as if in a conventional Shakespearean theater. The production values here are fairly minimal. The action is carried out on a kind of makeshift Jacobean stage, and is adequate throughout.

But the leads fall to Jeremy Brett and Piper Laurie, both of them very good actors, and they play against the rather spare production to infuse their roles with something interesting and powerful. Viewers may recall Jeremy Brett from a variety of roles, ranging from Freddy Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady to Sherlock Holmes in the long BBC series of productions. Here he captures the enigmatic quality of Macbeth, and he brings a certain warmth to the role, which elevates it from a mere story about a bad guy who did a bad thing and then kept on doing other bad things.

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