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MacBird!


MacBird! is a 1967 satire by Barbara Garson that superimposed the transferral of power following the Kennedy assassination onto the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Thus John F. Kennedy becomes "Ken O'Dunc", Lyndon Johnson becomes "MacBird", Lady Bird Johnson becomes "Lady MacBird", and so forth. As Macbeth assassinates Duncan, so MacBird is responsible for the assassination of Ken O'Dunc; and as Macbeth is defeated by Macduff, so MacBird is defeated by Robert O'Dunc (i.e. Robert Kennedy). This action is significantly influenced by the Three Witches, representing Students, Blacks, and Leftists.

In a 2006 Washington Post interview Garson said she was not seriously accusing Johnson of complicity in the Kennedy assassination:

"People used to ask me then, 'Do you really think Johnson killed Kennedy?' " Garson, now 65, recalls. "I never took that seriously. I used to say to people, 'If he did, it's the least of his crimes.' It was not what the play was about. The plot was a given."

The play parodies sequences from Shakespearean tragedies including Macbeth, Hamlet, and Richard III, albeit with Texas and Boston accents. The action follows MacBird from the 1960 Democratic National Convention, when he becomes Ken O'Dunc's Vice-President ("Hail, Vice-President thou art!"), to Ken O'Dunc's assassination (at the urging of Lady MacBird), to Robert O'Dunc's victory over MacBird at the next convention.

Macbird! started out as a short satirical sketch by Garson, a recent graduate of the Berkeley anti-Vietnam war movement. It was developed into a full-length play with help from writer/director Roy Levine (and Shakespeare).


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