I teach a course at UC Santa Cruz on conspiracies and conspiracy theories, and I’ve been rummaging around for a digital performance of MacBird! for quite some time. As far as I can tell, the only online rendition of the show can be found on the Internet Archive. It is an air check via KPFK-FM in Los Angeles of a wonderful ensemble doing the play in 1967, produced by the late and great Phil Austin.
For those of you not up on your Kennedy assassination controversy lore, Barbara Garson wrote MacBird! as a knockoff of MacBeth, Shakespeare’s tragedy of a power-mad Scottish general and his wife. Except now the blood thirsty couple were “MacBird,” “Lady MacBird,” and their target, “John Ken O’Dunc.” Garson has always (or at least recently) insisted that she did not mean to imply that Lyndon Johnson killed John F. Kennedy. But the play most certainly spoke to an audience of people who thought as much. Anyway, it’s a great performance, made possible by the preservative work of the Pacifica Radio Archives.
If anybody knows of a video version of MacBird! send us a comment!
MacBird! tape box (KPFK); Pacifica Radio Archives
