Robert David MacDonald (27 August 1929 – 19 May 2004), known as David, was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.
Robert David MacDonald was born in Elgin, in Morayshire, Scotland on 27 August 1929, the son of a doctor and a tobacco company executive. [1] He attended Wellington School, then read modern history at Magdalen College at Oxford University, and later trained as a conductor at the Royal College of Music and the Munich Conservatory. [2] [1]
MacDonald spent some years as a translator for UNESCO, where he met German director Erwin Piscator in 1957, leading to his involvement in theatre as a director. [2] [1] His collaboration with Piscator also led to his first significant success, when he translated Piscator's version of War and Peace in 1962. This was televised by Granada Television as well as being performed on Broadway for two years. [1]
He became assistant director at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, before becoming artistic director of Her Majesty's Theatre at Carlisle. [1]
In 1970, he became co-artistic director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, until his retirement in May 2003. [2] [1] During that time, he directed 50 productions [1] and wrote fifteen plays for the company, including The De Sade Show (1975), Chinchilla (1977), Summit Conference (1978 – later seen in the West End with Glenda Jackson, Georgina Hale and Gary Oldman), A Waste of Time (1980), Don Juan (1980), Webster (1983), In Quest of Conscience (1994), Britannicus (2002) and Cheri (2003).[ citation needed ] In March 1989, he directed a production of John Home's Douglas , with Angela Chadfield in the role of Lady Randolph. [3]
MacDonald translated over 70 plays and operas from ten different languages. In her obituary for MacDonald, Sarah Jones wrote "...it was for his translations, stemming from his ability to speak at least eight languages fluently, that MacDonald may well be best remembered. He brought a diet of Goethe, Lermontov, Gogol, Goldoni and Racine, not only to Glasgow audiences, but to those around Europe and America...". [1]
He translated five of Friedrich Schiller's plays, which led Michael Billington to write in 2005, "why is Schiller no longer box-office poison? The first crucial fact is that actable versions of the plays are now readily available. MacDonald was the great pioneer in this area, but Jeremy Sams, Francis Lamport, Mike Poulton and several others have also rid the plays of swagger and fustian." [4]
One of MacDonald's early successes was War and Peace , [2] [1] [5] which he had translated from Erwin Piscator's 1955 German stage adaptation of Tolstoy's novel. [6] MacDonald's version reached Broadway in 1967. [7]
With Giles Havergal, he adapted Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice for a one-man production in 1999. Following a run in Glasgow, the production has traveled to several theaters in Europe and the USA. [8]
His translation of Racine's Phèdre, titled Phedra, was produced at The Old Vic in November 1984, designed and directed by Philip Prowse and with Glenda Jackson in the title role and Robert Eddison as Theramenes. [9] [10] [11]
MacDonald died of a heart attack, aged 74. [2]
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer which gives a fictional account of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, imagining a rivalry between the two at the court of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. First performed in 1979, it was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's short 1830 play Mozart and Salieri, which Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used in 1897 as the libretto for an opera of the same name.
Glenda May Jackson was an English actress and politician. Over the course of her distinguished career she received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years, initially for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015, following boundary changes.
Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE was an English actor and singer. From a family with no theatrical connections, Quilley was determined from an early age to become an actor. He was taken on by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in his teens, and after a break for compulsory military service he began a West End career in 1950, succeeding Richard Burton in The Lady's Not For Burning. In the 1950s he appeared in revue, musicals, operetta and on television as well as in classic and modern drama in the theatre.
The Power of Darkness is a five-act drama by Leo Tolstoy. Written in 1886, the play's production was forbidden in Russia until 1902, mainly through the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev. In spite of the ban, the play was unofficially produced and read numerous times.
Phèdre is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
The Almeida Theatre is a 325-seat producing house located on Almeida Street off Upper Street in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre opened in 1980, and produces a diverse range of drama. Successful plays are often transferred to West End theatres.
Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or the production's formal beauty.
Matthew Warchus is an English theatre director, filmmaker and dramaturg. He has been the Artistic Director of London's The Old Vic since September 2015.
The Citizens Theatre, in what was the Royal Princess's Theatre, is the creation of James Bridie and is based in Glasgow, Scotland, as a principal producing theatre. The theatre includes a 500-seat Main Auditorium, and has also included various studio theatres over time.
Mary Stuart is a verse play by Friedrich Schiller that depicts the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots. The play consists of five acts, each divided into several scenes. The play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800. The play formed the basis for Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda (1835).
Laurance Rudic is a British theatre artist best known for his long association as a leading member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre company - 1972-1996.
Don Carlos is a (historical) tragedy in five acts by Friedrich Schiller; it was written between 1783 and 1787 and first produced in Hamburg in 1787.
Michael Howell Blakemore AO OBE was an Australian actor, writer and theatre director who also made a handful of films. A former Associate Director of the National Theatre, in 2000 he became the only individual to win Tony Awards for Best Director of a Play and Musical in the same year for Copenhagen and Kiss Me, Kate.
Mike Poulton is an English writer, translator and adapter of classic plays for contemporary audiences. He received a Tony nomination for his play 'Fortune's Fool' along with his adaptations of 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies'.
Platonov is the name in English given to an early, untitled play in four acts written by Anton Chekhov in 1878. It was the first large-scale drama by Chekhov, written specifically for Maria Yermolova, rising star of Maly Theatre. Yermolova rejected the play and it was not published until 1923.
Giles Pollock Havergal CBE is a theatre director and actor, opera stage director, teacher, and adaptor. He was artistic director of Glasgow's Citizens Theatre from 1969 until he stepped down in 2003, one of the triumvirate of directors at the theatre, alongside Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald.
Dramatic Workshop was the name of a drama and acting school associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City. The German expatriate stage director Erwin Piscator began a long association with the school in 1940. Among the faculty were Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, among the students Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Beatrice Arthur, Walter Matthau, Tennessee Williams and Elaine Stritch. The Dramatic Workshop considerably contributed to the resurgence of the Off-Broadway theatre.
Philip Prowse is a stage director and designer, and was one of the triumvirate of directors at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, from 1970 until 2004.
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Valentine Gilbert Delabere "Val" May, CBE was an English theatre director and artistic director. He led the Bristol Old Vic from 1961 to 1975, and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre from 1975 to 1992.