Story Photos
 Photo courtesy Canadian actor Rick Miller brings his production of 'MacHomer' to Longview on Saturday, the first production of the season sponsored by the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. |
Shakespeare, 'Simpsons' collide in royal spoof 'MacHomer'
Thursday, September 27, 2007 7:51 AM PDT
By Tom Paulu
Printable version
E-mail this articleIt all started out at a silly cast party.
Canadian actor Rick Miller had a minor role in a production of "Macbeth." "I had too much time on my hands," he said, so he decided to recast Shakespeare's famous tragedy featuring the Simpsons.
"This cast party joke has come a long way," Miller said in a phone interview last week. By now, more than half a million people have seen his production of "MacHomer," with shows in about 130 cities. "The tour has never really ended in 12 years now," Miller said.
It comes to Longview Saturday as the first production of the season sponsored by the Columbia Theatre.
Miller, 37, said he took the story of "Macbeth" and "shortened, brutally edited and somewhat revised it. I call it one dysfunctional family does another." So Homer, Marge and Bart enact "Macbeth's" tale of witches and murder in ancient Scotland.
Miller portrays more than 50 voices from the Simpsons series. "I've trained my vocal cords to withstand a lot of abuse," he said.
The result is lots of laughs, according to Miller. "Whether people know the Simpsons or Shakespeare or not, it's not as important as the fact that it's a fun hour and 15 minutes."
He recommends the show for "anyone who watches the Simpsons" from about 10 years old and up.
Miller said he has to change roles too quickly to don different wigs or costumes. Whenever he switches roles, an image of that character appears on a screen to help the audience keep track. Live video cams add 21st century flash to the tale Shakespeare published 401 years ago.
Homer's kin and the royal family of Scotland in "Macbeth" have more in common that you might think, according to Miller.
"The Simpsons are a huge popular culture phenomenon. It's known to everyone in the English-speaking world. Shakespeare himself was popular culture 400 years ago. "Shakespeare took from a set of stories that were told at the time," which Miller said isn't unlike today's TV offerings.
"Both Shakespeare and (Simpsons creator) Matt Groening were not writing for posterity and to be studied as curriculum. They were writing for their dinner and to please people."
True. But one more similarity is that academic courses are taught about Bart Simpson as well as the Bard.
"MacHomer" is one of several one-man shows created by Miller, who grew up in Montreal and studied both architecture and theater.
The past four years, he's done a show called "Bigger Than Jesus," which he called "an exploration of Christianity from a lapsed Catholic's perspective." He plays a Jewish academic, a revivalist preacher, an obsequious flight attendant, and, finally, Jesus himself.
Miller is also the host of "Just for Laughs," an ABC-TV show that started in July. He appears briefly to introduce a series of candid camera gags.
Seven million people watched on one night, he said -- more than 10 times as many people as seen all his live performances combined.
Still, he'd rather play C.M. Burns or Jesus on stage.
"My heart lies in live performance."
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