Interview:
Alan Cumming on staging a one-man Macbeth
Aberfeldy’s
most famous son on the toil and trouble of making Shakespeare
How much doom
and gloom can one man take? For most actors, it would be enough of a mental
burden to take on the role of Macbeth, the warrior king whose ambition leads to
self-destruction. But for Alan Cumming, that’s only the start of it. In a new
production of Macbeth, the Perthshire actor is taking on every character in
Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy, from Lady Macbeth to the sinister coven of
witches.
Not only
that, but he and his two directors, John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg, have set
the whole thing in a psychiatric hospital, complete with snooping CCTV cameras,
in a high-tech production by the National Theatre of Scotland. Here, the play
becomes the fevered imaginings of a mentally ill patient. It means Cumming must
portray Macbeth’s murderous rise and fall through the lens of a character with
an already troubled mind. ‘In his psychotic state, he performs the play of
Macbeth, so there’s another narrative on top of the story and, at some point,
the patient’s narrative and the play merge,’ he says.
It’ll put
Cumming under the kind of emotional pressure he last felt in 2006 when he
starred in a London production of Bent, Martin Sherman’s devastating play about
Nazi persecution of homosexuals. ‘I am healthily aware of the danger of doing a
play about tyrants, madness and violence that’s set in a mental hospital,’ he
says, grabbing a bowl of soup in a rehearsal break. ‘I’m aware of the potential
for slithering down the slippery slope to doom and despair. When I was doing
Bent, which was a really devastating thing to do every night, I just made sure
I had absolute fun as soon as the curtain came down and I think I’m going to
have to do that now. Rather fortuitously and tragically, I discovered there’s a
beautiful bar round the corner from where I live that’s open until 5am. That’s
going to be the counter to my gloomy thane.’
The decision
to do the play single-handed (with actors Myra McFadyen and Ali Craig standing
by as hospital staff) stems from Freud’s vision of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as
two sides of the same coin. Cumming originally imagined a production in which
he and his costar would swap the two lead roles each night. One idea led to
another, and here he is, playing the whole lot, learning about Shakespeare’s
multifarious worldview as he goes.
‘I see
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as two parts of the same person,’ he says. ‘My reason
for wanting to do this play was based on the way the women are always chiding
the men about their masculinity. I’ve been doing vocal exercises exploring the
masculine voice and the feminine voice, and looking at the way we use our voice
in different ways at different times. Certain lines of Lady Macbeth are most
effective in a masculine voice, and then other lines by Macbeth or other
characters are done in a feminine voice. There’s a whole lot of interesting
things about the wiles we use to make our way in the world.’
Although the
hospital setting provides a justification for the play to be performed by a
single actor, the real reason for the relocation lies in the play itself. As
Cumming sees it, Macbeth is a study in mental breakdown: ‘We had a psychiatrist
in rehearsals the other day and it’s fascinating. I think it’s safe to say that
both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth lose their minds or lose their reason; there are
illusions all the time; Macbeth thinks he sees things; there are visions and
maybe the witches are that, certainly they’re conjuring things; Lady Macbeth is
probably the first character in literature with obsessive compulsive disorder;
there’s so much talk of insanity and big examples of it.’
All of which
means Cumming will be taking a singular vision of the play home to New York in
July after its Glasgow run. The NTS is not about to give the Americans a
romanticised view of Scotland, even with a play set in the actor’s childhood
stomping ground of Birnam, Glamis and Cawdor. The radical take on the play is
typical, Cumming feels, of a generation of artists in Scotland who are neither
backward-looking nor isolationist in their approach.
‘The play is
more about the human condition than Scottishness, but maybe it’s an insight
into what Scotland’s going to be like when it gets independence,’ says the
actor, who endorsed Alex Salmond at the last election. ‘Since devolution,
Scotland has turned outward and has more confidence and also can’t blame
England for everything any more – that’s a really healthy thing.
‘The SNP have
been so good for the arts. The way they’ve placed the arts in education, for
example, is amazing – not just head and shoulders but an entire torso above
many other countries. I’m here right now in an amazing job, which is only there
because the theatre company was founded due to devolution and the SNP
supporting it. Scotland’s engagement in the arts is really unusual. It’s
experimental and forward-thinking, but at the same time, it’s very
traditional.’
Regardless of
his American citizenship and marriage to New York graphic artist Grant Shaffer,
he says his connection to Scotland is undiminished: ‘Being Scottish is like
being Jewish; it’s about a thing inside you. I’ve talked about this with Jewish
people, even people who are not at all religious; it’s about having very strong
connections to what formed you as a person. It’s based on all the different
things that are good about the country right now, like fairness, making sure
everyone is looked after, fighting injustice and understanding the necessity of
celebration and the arts. Those are really Scottish traits and as you go around
the world, you begin to understand them in comparison with what other people
are like. The way I’m perceived in America is completely about being Scottish;
it’s about being open, having a sense of joy, taking no shit, but also about
being quite provocative.’
Macbeth,
Tramway, Glasgow, Wed 13–Sat 30 Jun.
Tramway are
alerting fans to the fact that there are only a few tickets left for Alan
Cumming in Macbeth.
Alan Cumming
is to host this year’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland
Alan Cumming backs Picture Our Subway campgain
Alan Cumming
has backed a campaign to stop Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) from
banning photography on Glasgow's Subway.
The Scots
actor tweeted a link to Picture Our Subway, a group set up by city photographer
David Bennett, who has branded the proposed bylaw "draconian".
If the ban
goes through it could see people who shoot photos or videos on the network hit
with a £1000 fine.
