Yes, ...on opening nights , I would just sit in the back. My son would always open his play with an intro monologue, as they did in Old England, at The Rose Theater. Toward the end off a play , he would always walk down the aisle , smile and wacth people's reactions! Was important that they got what he was trying to say. Then, he would stop in the back, nod , and give me this unigue. smile off his. Guess it's Mother's Day, I have a right to remember him.🙏🎭🏦🌅🇺🇸🇩🇰🇬🇧
If this performance had been captured on tape and reviewed at this date, 2015, the critics would have been laudatory. How things have changed. It was vilified because folks were expecting what had gone before; from the clips here, he looks absolutely brilliant. He was misunderstood, but the audience loved it and supported him. That's what matters. Critics can be a superficial, unseeing, insensitive bunch; I know...I am a reviewer, not a critic. I look for what is genius and leave alone what I may have misunderstood. Critics of the old school, at this time, prided themselves on excoriation, presumption and intellectual snobbery. They were given power because they were the only game in town...it was a power they didn't deserve. They were often not literary geniuses, nor did they have Ph.D.s or an exceptional education. They got to a position of power because they made themselves feared. PATHETIC and they destroyed shows that were brilliant. That happens less and less today, thank goodness because of the internet. Care in point the Streetcar Named Desire Blair Underwood version was spectacular. It was the best Streetcar I had ever seen, and I saw quite a few. A NY Times critic panned it. The Twitter feed for the show and beyond called for the critic to be fired. He was soooo far off the beam and missed so much of what was obvious to most. The critic wrote an ineffectual rebuff about sometimes one isn't up to seeing so many shows, etc., and is tired, etc. Critics get the big bucks. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. The show was extended despite that inane and puerile review by Brantley, as it should have been. The clout of critics has dwindled and they are fortunate if anyone reads the Times...as the paper of record, it is rotten, and censors the news and bows to sponsors and is rarely an example of an investigative free press. The Guardian is much more forthcoming than The Times...which reports only what it wants and then calls it the "news fit to print." I would rather get my news from European sources-more reliable.
+Carole Di Tosti The fundamental problem with criticism (as a form of entertainment masquerading as a cultural resource) is that it's only ever "fun" when it's destructive; the critic can only assert his/ her self by attacking. Artists who are also critics tend to be better because they have the luxury, often, of being known (and valued) for doing something else.
Just finished Brian Blessed autobiography who also performed in this production. He admits this production was a mess and O'Tooles performance was bad. He did not feel O'Toole was in his right state of mind at the time, but he also felt the critics were unnecessarily harsh given O'Tooles reputable body of work otherwise
@@andrewcairns8266 Only one that I know of and that is the one hour version of 'Taming of the Shrew' (audio only) that he acted with Sian Phillips, his wife at the time. It is available on UA-cam as part of the Living Shakespeare series.
Si Macbeth no hubiera sido todo un éxito, no se habría vendido toda la temporada. Excelente actuación de Peter O´toole!!! Que envidia a quienes tuvieron la oportunidad de ver alguna de sus obras.
Not the point...he is looking to be caught BECAUSE HE HAS DONE THE DEED...why Lady Macbeth freaks and tells him to put back the knives...duh, duh, duh. As Peter O'Toole says Macbeth's nobility shines through...THAT is his tragic flaw...as a villain.
@@appsadmin1858 That might be what O'Toole needs to play the part but I don't think it's reflected in the text. I don't see any evidence that he wanted to be caught at all. His flaw as a villain is that he has too much imagination. He can split people from the nave to the chops on the battlefield but lacks the last degree of cold-blooded calculation to be a successful monster. He isn't Iago.
This is amazing footage as I only hoped there might be a filmed version of O'Toole's Macbeth to judge what all the fuss was about. From what you can see here O'Toole doesn't seem quite as awful as always thought in this part - if nothing else it is clear he is a very great actor - any chance of anyone knowing where the whole Macbeth film is?
thank you for uploading. Doesn't seem like his best work, but he's still a damn genius. And however, poorly the play was received-it was a completely "sold-out" run.
Interesting, because O' Toole is correct. In Theater, audience be comes part off the play. In the film, which I love , " Shakespeare in Love , the focus is as much on the audience , as almost an interplay at The Old Rose Theater in London. As a young child in Denmark, before T.V. dominated, Theater was at the heart off people Culture. They not Critics nessesary voice off a play! Quality of acting. And, Radio played a powerful part as weekly,monthly theater production's. The interesting part is Voice modulation was everything. Why I always loved to listen to Orson Wells, he was a master off vocal interpatations. Later clearly understood , how face and moment was equal to Voice...if not more so. Loved to work with my late son , and his Theater production's in Los Angeles. He was a master off the word, and moment. Had he lived more , no telling what he could have achieved passed at 35. Brian Nohr, was at age 32, in Who is Who , in L. A. Theater Review...I painted his back drops, but he did every thing on his own. Perhaps, here in Lock Down,Radio has missed an Old Great opportunity to bring Theather back?! Lot off material, to cover.🤔🇩🇰🇺🇸🇬🇧🎭🦅🗿🏦🌅
This was a famous theatrical disaster-with O'Toole being himself and not the part...but like a train wreck, it was sold out. A couple of the best critical put-downs were : ": "Chances are he likes the play, but O'Toole's performance suggests that he is taking some kind of personal revenge on it." "He delivers every line with a monotonous tenor bark as if addressing an audience of deaf Eskimos."
Eskimos have ears even when deaf or stone cold sober or dead as stones for nothing is what cannot be and everything be not what can be.,...,.so to be or not to be.
Why that play was a disaster ? I searched everywhere, though didn't find a thing. I remember that some critics used to describe it as " epic failure" ! Is it O'Toole ???
Coming in the Old Vic stage door after the O'Toole Macbeth had closed, we were greeted by a wardrobe rack from which, suspended by their hair, hung three severed heads, and bloody handprints on the wall leading upstairs to the dressing rooms.
I saw this at a preview. It really was as bad as everyone at the time - not just critics - said. Everyone miscast, a truly terrible design, no direction, and the cherry on the trifle of course was O'Toole's abysmal central performance. Every iambic pentameter was delivered in the same robotic shout. I was so appalled that I left at the interval. Up until that warm night in 1980 I had been a massive fan of O'Toole. The disillusionment was vertiginous.
@@truesurrealist Of course. It was just one night 42 years ago. Watch any of the interviews available on UA-cam and you'll see that O'Toole was an intelligent and perceptive man, with a fund of great stories and the sensibility of a poet. No-one can take away from his wonderful performances in Lawrence, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Ruling Class and - latterly - Venus. I blame drugs.
He plays a hamlet at the end of his rope which is what it’s about , I think Peter at the end of his rope is a shabby alcoholic who understands the world he’s presenting
Critics be critics. They have to make a name for themselves by dissenting from popular opinion on a show's brilliance. Criticism should not be an art. It is one of bitter scorn.
Hell, this looks great compared to Al Pacino in the 2016 David Mamet play China Doll, just him barking random phrases for two hours. It was so bad I started laughing; a woman was boredly texting right as he stood above her.
This was directed by Bryan Forbes! ? A fILM director. Peter needed a strong hand to channel his passion. He’s being indulged here- never good for any actor. Every great artist falls at one point and this was Peter’s? He was the most exciting dangerous actor of his generation bar none
It sold out through a combination of morbid curiosity and unintentional comedy value. It's hard to feel much sympathy for O'Toole when you read of what a vanity project it was and how he basically acted the demented ruler for real. He demanded complete artistic control and the literal spotlight to be on him the whole time while other actors remained mute and immobile. Anybody who didn't agree with his every word on the play was sacked or accused of sabotaging him as part of Timothy West's "Gas, Light and Coke Company". West himself was publicly labelled a traitor by O'Toole when he'd just tried to prevent the oncoming disaster and refused to be made a scapegoat for it. Bryan Forbes was brought in to replace the original director because he agreed with everything O'Toole said - publicly at least. Forbes labelled West a Judas with no mention of having begged him to talk some sense into O'Toole. West for my money just rightly refused to let his own career and reputation be damaged by what he'd stood against from day one. O'Toole's would have been helped far more by similarly honest people than those who enabled his professional self destruction!
Can you believe we actually had a profile of a Macbeth interpretation on Sunday morning mainstream TV once?
We've fallen low. You're right.
Thank you for uploading this archive material. I missed the production when it was on at The Old Vic and to see these clips is a real treat.
'And nothing is but what is not' The line that baffled scholars and the public for years on end. Shakespeare the genius
Oh, that voice. That Voice.
God, I miss this man.
That must have been fantastic. And to see that Brian Blessed was in it too....what a great night of theatre!
Yes, ...on opening nights , I would just sit in the back. My son would always open his play with an intro monologue, as they did in Old England, at The Rose Theater. Toward the end off a play , he would always walk down the aisle , smile and wacth people's reactions! Was important that they got what he was trying to say. Then, he would stop in the back, nod , and give me this unigue. smile off his. Guess it's Mother's Day, I have a right to remember him.🙏🎭🏦🌅🇺🇸🇩🇰🇬🇧
If this performance had been captured on tape and reviewed at this date, 2015, the critics would have been laudatory. How things have changed. It was vilified because folks were expecting what had gone before; from the clips here, he looks absolutely brilliant. He was misunderstood, but the audience loved it and supported him. That's what matters. Critics can be a superficial, unseeing, insensitive bunch; I know...I am a reviewer, not a critic. I look for what is genius and leave alone what I may have misunderstood. Critics of the old school, at this time, prided themselves on excoriation, presumption and intellectual snobbery. They were given power because they were the only game in town...it was a power they didn't deserve. They were often not literary geniuses, nor did they have Ph.D.s or an exceptional education. They got to a position of power because they made themselves feared. PATHETIC and they destroyed shows that were brilliant. That happens less and less today, thank goodness because of the internet.
Care in point the Streetcar Named Desire Blair Underwood version was spectacular. It was the best Streetcar I had ever seen, and I saw quite a few. A NY Times critic panned it. The Twitter feed for the show and beyond called for the critic to be fired. He was soooo far off the beam and missed so much of what was obvious to most. The critic wrote an ineffectual rebuff about sometimes one isn't up to seeing so many shows, etc., and is tired, etc. Critics get the big bucks. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. The show was extended despite that inane and puerile review by Brantley, as it should have been. The clout of critics has dwindled and they are fortunate if anyone reads the Times...as the paper of record, it is rotten, and censors the news and bows to sponsors and is rarely an example of an investigative free press. The Guardian is much more forthcoming than The Times...which reports only what it wants and then calls it the "news fit to print." I would rather get my news from European sources-more reliable.
+Carole Di Tosti The fundamental problem with criticism (as a form of entertainment masquerading as a cultural resource) is that it's only ever "fun" when it's destructive; the critic can only assert his/ her self by attacking. Artists who are also critics tend to be better because they have the luxury, often, of being known (and valued) for doing something else.
Just finished Brian Blessed autobiography who also performed in this production. He admits this production was a mess and O'Tooles performance was bad. He did not feel O'Toole was in his right state of mind at the time, but he also felt the critics were unnecessarily harsh given O'Tooles reputable body of work otherwise
I wish some of O'toole's Shakespeare peformances had been filmed. Do you happen to know if any footage exists from any?
When it doesn’t fit their paradigm or expectation they feel out of control and criticize
@@andrewcairns8266 Only one that I know of and that is the one hour version of 'Taming of the Shrew' (audio only) that he acted with Sian Phillips, his wife at the time. It is available on UA-cam as part of the Living Shakespeare series.
He is great here. I love how he played it. Wish we could watch the whole film.
Gem!!! one of the finest actors, him and Orson Wells. It's so hard to determine who the better Shakespeare centred actor was out of the tow of them
Si Macbeth no hubiera sido todo un éxito, no se habría vendido toda la temporada. Excelente actuación de Peter O´toole!!! Que envidia a quienes tuvieron la oportunidad de ver alguna de sus obras.
Bloody brilliant. Thanks for this.
O'Toole comes out covered in blood and says, 'I have done the deed'! We'd never have guessed, Peter.
Not the point...he is looking to be caught BECAUSE HE HAS DONE THE DEED...why Lady Macbeth freaks and tells him to put back the knives...duh, duh, duh. As Peter O'Toole says Macbeth's nobility shines through...THAT is his tragic flaw...as a villain.
@@appsadmin1858 That might be what O'Toole needs to play the part but I don't think it's reflected in the text. I don't see any evidence that he wanted to be caught at all. His flaw as a villain is that he has too much imagination. He can split people from the nave to the chops on the battlefield but lacks the last degree of cold-blooded calculation to be a successful monster. He isn't Iago.
Macbeth is my favorite right now. Would have loved to see this. What a thrill. Gotta love O'toole. Richard Harris as Lear would have been fantastique.
2 Celts. A pity Richard Burton wasn't somehow hauled in. The Celts and Shakespeare: now THAT is luxury!
harris was never in the same league as o toole . . . not even close
This is amazing footage as I only hoped there might be a filmed version of O'Toole's Macbeth to judge what all the fuss was about. From what you can see here O'Toole doesn't seem quite as awful as always thought in this part - if nothing else it is clear he is a very great actor - any chance of anyone knowing where the whole Macbeth film is?
thank you for uploading. Doesn't seem like his best work, but he's still a damn genius. And however, poorly the play was received-it was a completely "sold-out" run.
I’ve always been fascinated with this production after listening to Brian Blessed’s autobiography and how he just demolishes the whole thing.
Good to know that Martha Teichner's always done brilliant work for this show!!
Interesting, because O' Toole is correct. In Theater, audience be comes part off the play. In the film, which I love , " Shakespeare in Love , the focus is as much on the audience , as almost an interplay at The Old Rose Theater in London. As a young child in Denmark, before T.V. dominated, Theater was at the heart off people Culture. They not Critics nessesary voice off a play! Quality of acting. And, Radio played a powerful part as weekly,monthly theater production's. The interesting part is Voice modulation was everything. Why I always loved to listen to Orson Wells, he was a master off vocal interpatations. Later clearly understood , how face and moment was equal to Voice...if not more so. Loved to work with my late son , and his Theater production's in Los Angeles. He was a master off the word, and moment. Had he lived more , no telling what he could have achieved passed at 35. Brian Nohr, was at age 32, in Who is Who , in L. A. Theater Review...I painted his back drops, but he did every thing on his own. Perhaps, here in Lock Down,Radio has missed an Old Great opportunity to bring Theather back?! Lot off material, to cover.🤔🇩🇰🇺🇸🇬🇧🎭🦅🗿🏦🌅
One of Brian Blessed's books has a great chapter on this....
Peter O'Tool my hero !
This was a famous theatrical disaster-with O'Toole being himself and not the part...but like a train wreck, it was sold out.
A couple of the best critical put-downs were : ": "Chances are he likes the play, but O'Toole's performance suggests that he is taking some kind of personal revenge on it."
"He delivers every line with a monotonous tenor bark as if addressing an audience of deaf Eskimos."
I wondered for years why that play tanked !!
Eskimos have ears even when deaf or stone cold sober or dead as stones for nothing is what cannot be and everything be not what can be.,...,.so to be or not to be.
Fabulous actor very few REAL actors left these days. He was a funny intelligent man
Why that play was a disaster ?
I searched everywhere, though didn't find a thing.
I remember that some critics used to describe it as " epic failure" !
Is it O'Toole ???
Coming in the Old Vic stage door after the O'Toole Macbeth had closed, we were greeted by a wardrobe rack from which, suspended by their hair, hung three severed heads, and bloody handprints on the wall leading upstairs to the dressing rooms.
That.... was wonderful.
Wat a great actor he was .
I so wish the whole thing had been filmed - it would definitely now be seen as a masterpiece.
I saw it in Liverpool.No complaints!
He makes Shakespeare tolerable to those of us who cannot stand Shakespeare
alan smithee if you can’t stand shakespeare, you have more problems than anyone can help you with
O'Toole was high as a kite, I would say.
Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to get into King James 6th of Scotland to get into his inner circle 😂
That looked pretty bad. I mean, I have rarely seen O'toole miss by that much.
garrison 68 care to explain how?
He's very Of The Theatre, who is he?
He's seriously sauced in the interview 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I saw this at a preview. It really was as bad as everyone at the time - not just critics - said. Everyone miscast, a truly terrible design, no direction, and the cherry on the trifle of course was O'Toole's abysmal central performance. Every iambic pentameter was delivered in the same robotic shout. I was so appalled that I left at the interval. Up until that warm night in 1980 I had been a massive fan of O'Toole. The disillusionment was vertiginous.
Did you regain any liking for O'Toole or did it completely disgust you?
@@truesurrealist Of course. It was just one night 42 years ago. Watch any of the interviews available on UA-cam and you'll see that O'Toole was an intelligent and perceptive man, with a fund of great stories and the sensibility of a poet. No-one can take away from his wonderful performances in Lawrence, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Ruling Class and - latterly - Venus. I blame drugs.
He plays a hamlet at the end of his rope which is what it’s about , I think Peter at the end of his rope is a shabby alcoholic who understands the world he’s presenting
Critics be critics. They have to make a name for themselves by dissenting from popular opinion on a show's brilliance. Criticism should not be an art. It is one of bitter scorn.
so brilliant
Hell, this looks great compared to Al Pacino in the 2016 David Mamet play China Doll, just him barking random phrases for two hours. It was so bad I started laughing; a woman was boredly texting right as he stood above her.
Blessed!!!! Love his turd story.
The plague of the legitimate artist, takes time to gestate into creative genius, so it goes.
I love peter, but this looked terrible production, but it sold out so maybe a much younger audience likes it. Bravo! 🎩
This was directed by Bryan Forbes!
? A fILM director.
Peter needed a strong hand to channel his passion. He’s being indulged here- never good for any actor. Every great artist falls at one point and this was Peter’s?
He was the most exciting dangerous actor of his generation bar none
It sold out through a combination of morbid curiosity and unintentional comedy value. It's hard to feel much sympathy for O'Toole when you read of what a vanity project it was and how he basically acted the demented ruler for real.
He demanded complete artistic control and the literal spotlight to be on him the whole time while other actors remained mute and immobile. Anybody who didn't agree with his every word on the play was sacked or accused of sabotaging him as part of Timothy West's "Gas, Light and Coke Company".
West himself was publicly labelled a traitor by O'Toole when he'd just tried to prevent the oncoming disaster and refused to be made a scapegoat for it. Bryan Forbes was brought in to replace the original director because he agreed with everything O'Toole said - publicly at least.
Forbes labelled West a Judas with no mention of having begged him to talk some sense into O'Toole. West for my money just rightly refused to let his own career and reputation be damaged by what he'd stood against from day one. O'Toole's would have been helped far more by similarly honest people than those who enabled his professional self destruction!
It was bloody awful. A disaster. And I loved OToole. Could not have been worse.
Alan Moore explain why. It seemed quite good.
I agree with critic .. he acts like his drunk .. and probably is .drunk . terrible play
He looks absolutely hammered in that first clip.
It was also help if you could write correctly, 'Boogie'.
I mean depending on the version you see macbeth just finished a battle. so I can believe the first clip is reflecting that.
And here we have a critic giving a prime example of why critics are equal to lawyers in scorn.