The 20-Minute Macbeth

Beginning in the late 1960s, after attending Yale on the G.I. Bill and struggling with a career as a playwright, Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill developed the idiosyncratic storytelling persona of Brother Blue. Usually dressed head to toe in blue, with blue-tinted glasses, and covered in hand-drawn blue butterflies, Hill was a transfixing figure on the streets of Boston.  One could frequently hear him re-telling Shakespeare's plays, his own personal stories, and folk tales from Africa and Asia to any passer by that would listen. 

In this audio, from WNYC's 1979 storytelling festival, listen to Hill distill the essence of Macbeth in 20 minutes, all the while employing a steady drum beat and interstitial blues harmonica riffs. When the three witches tell Macbeth that he is destined to be king, Brother Blue's Macbeth explains, "That must be jive, cause King Duncan is alive!"