Alan Cumming's one-man production of Macbeth lands on Broadway. The National Theatre of Scotland's production of MACBETH was performed last summer at the Lincoln Center Festival. Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming's virtuoso performance is a bold reimagining of Shakespeare's chilling tale of desire, ambition, and the supernatural.
The production is set in a psychiatric unit and centers on a patient who is reliving the story of Macbeth. CCTV cameras watch the patient's every move and the clinical walls of the unit come to life in a visually stunning multi-media theatrical experience.
Mr. Cumming...is a versatile performer who here gets to indulge in the kind of high-hurdle challenge (or ego trip) that can prove irresistible to actors...Watching him perform this personalized rendition of 'Macbeth,' I was at times more intrigued by the battle going on between the serious actor and the shameless entertainer than I was by the tense struggles taking place in the divided mind of Macbeth...In terms of stamina and ingenuity, Mr. Cumming's achievement is certainly remarkable. But I came away from my second viewing of this production - I first saw it when it was presented by the Lincoln Center Festival last summer - with the confirmed impression that while Mr. Cumming had persuasively differentiated all the key roles, he had not fully inhabited any one of them.
While this Macbeth has spooky atmosphere and the verse raises gooseflesh, it falls between camps. Veterans of recontextualized Bard may yawn; people who don't know the text may be frightened, but more likely confused.
Videos