Alan Cumming does "Macbeth' on Broadway

Cross-dressing seems to have gone viral on Broadway this season.

There's Nathan Lane in the title role of Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance, playing the caricature of a gay man"“ a popular stereotype in 1930s burlesque.

There's Billy Porter in the smash hit musical, Kinky Boots, playing a high-heeled, high-kicking drag queen who teams up with a British factory owner to create a sensational new niche market for cross-dressing footwear.

And there's Bertie Carvel in the Royal Shakespeare Company's marvelous musical, Matilda, playing the larger-than-life Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress from hell who terrorizes the title character throughout her early education.

All of these star-turns exploit the timeless joke of "the man in a dress," entertaining their audiences lavishly while simultaneously (in the case of the former two) moving them deeply.

And now we have Alan Cumming as Lady Macbeth— a tour de force performance that transcends any "cross-dressing" category.

All three witches, too

Indeed, the entire production of Cumming's Macbeth, currently playing on Broadway, stands apart— not only from any production of Macbeth but from any production, period. It belongs in a category all its own.

That's because Alan Cumming plays not only Lady Macbeth (a feat unto itself), but also Macbeth, Duncan, Banquo, Malcolm, Macduff and every other role in Shakespeare's entire play. Oh, and let's not forget the three witches. Cumming plays them, too. And under the most bizarre circumstances.

This daring production of the National Theatre of Scotland was conceived by its co-directors, John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg, together with the fearless Mr. Cumming— bold collaborators who've certainly taken their Macbeth where angels fear to tread: They've set the play in a mental hospital, specifically in the room of a patient (Cumming) who has just been admitted.

As a female doctor and a burly male attendant look on, the patient submissively strips off his street clothes and dons a hospital gown. Satisfied with his subdued behavior, the two white-coated figures leave, locking the door behind them.

Naked in the bathtub

"When shall we three meet again?" the patient calls out to them. He has uttered the first line of Macbeth, a play that clearly possesses him. The patient then proceeds to re-enact the tragedy alone over the next hour and a half in his hospital room, playing all the parts, while the doctor and attendant watch through an observation window as well as concealed cameras.

From the very first moment, it's clear that that this patient has "eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner" (to quote Banquo's line from Act I). He re-enacts scene after scene of Macbeth, punctuated by strange, wild sounds (birds? Strangled screams of patients in other rooms?) that filter into his room through the hospital's air ducts. He pauses only when his observers enter— at which point he abruptly ceases the dialogue and resumes his submissive demeanor.

Having re-enacted the opening prophecy scene (he plays all three witches, whom the cameras project on the upstage screens in three separate images), the patient then strips naked and steps into the bathtub. (On his bare chest are three huge gashes— signs of self-mutilation). There he begins to re-enact the celebrated scene between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as they plot the murder of Duncan (their king and friend), followed by Macbeth's rise to rule over Scotland.

Patient's apology

Emerging from the bath, the patient walks downstage, drying himself, alternating as Macbeth (draping the towel around his waist) and Lady Macbeth (draping the towel over his chest), as he plays both characters in the scene. It's not drag, it's not cross-dressing, it's not camp"“ on the contrary, it's simple and natural and utterly mesmerizing.

Next, the patient sails through the soliloquies ("Is this a dagger I see before me?"; "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold") and propels the narrative through the murder. "I have done the deed!" he cries, and suddenly his hands are drenched in blood.

At that point, the door bursts open; the doctor and orderly rush in and administer an injection, washing his hands and calming him. "The night has been unruly," the patient explains apologetically, quoting Macbeth and eliciting a laugh from the audience.

Tricking the audience

After the medical staff leaves, a coup de théâtre follows. As the patient begins to recite the banquet scene, a huge actor wearing a black suit and a gas mask bursts into the room. It's the terrifying appearance of Banquo's ghost, one that breaks the convention established thus far— namely, that Cumming plays all the roles in Macbeth. We in the audience become frightened and disoriented. Are we too seeing visions? Are we paranoid delusional, like this patient, not to mention Macbeth himself?

With the convention of "the one-man-show Macbeth" now broken, the attendants join in the act. "You lack the season of all natures— sleep," the doctor says soothingly to Macbeth, administering another injection. While the patient sleeps, the cameras project the ghost's image on the upstage wall (even though we can't see him walking about the stage). So now we're sharing Macbeth's nightmares, too.

Thus the patient continues the narrative, embellished by one eerie, ingenious detail after another. For the "Double, double toil and trouble" sequence, the patient finds a dead bird in the air duct and proceeds to disembowel it on stage. For the death of Duncan's boys, the patient drowns a child's sweater in the bathtub. As he recites Lady Macbeth's "Out, damned spot" speech, streaked with blood, the patient (as Macbeth) calls out to the attendants, entreating. "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"

Fresh insight

Following his recitation of "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," the patient as Macbeth"“ knowing he is undone— tries to drown himself in the tub. Saved once more by the attendants, he asks again, ruefully, "When shall we three meet again?"

This is the fifth Macbeth I've seen this year"“ and the first one to provide new insight into the murky mind of its tortured protagonist. As played by Cumming, Macbeth is a paranoid delusional— a modern man who cannot cope in this frightening, out-of-control world, who cannot control his impulses or his fears, who is ultimately driven mad, "a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."

It's a powerful performance "“ one that elicits in us the requisite pity and fear that's the hallmark of all great tragedy.

As for Lady Macbeth? Cumming has amply demonstrated that you don't need to wear a dress to play a woman.♦


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