You still have a few more chances to see Alan Cumming’s (nearly) one-man production of Macbeth as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. I saw it last night, and have been thinking about it non-stop since then.
I am not sure Alan Cumming is real.
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Alan Cumming is doing a one-man production of Macbeth, set in a mental hospital. It’s coming to Lincoln Center in July and I’m pretty goddamn excited. I strongly encourage you to watch the trailer and then get excited with me.
“We both wanted to do it properly in the way we really wanted to do it. It’s the perfect show for NTS – it’s traditional and radical and experimental. It’s nuts, what we’re doing. Nuts!”
In the meantime, Cumming has immersed himself in the voices of Macbeth by not only doing an audiobook of the play but also recording Macbeth: A Novel by David Hewson and A J Hartley. Then, last autumn, the immersive theatremakers Punchdrunk asked him to guest for two performances in Sleep No More, their reworking of Macbeth.
“So all roads were leading to Macbeth,” he says. But a Macbeth in which actor and directors, to a greater extent than usual, make it all up as they go along. This, for Cumming, is the visceral thrill.
I saw Alan Cumming’s one-man version of Macbeth over the summer at Lincoln Center and was totally blown away. Evidently the show will be back in NYC in April, and if you haven’t caught it yet I strongly recommend that you do so. Here’s an awesome trailer from the last production!
I JUST REALLY LIKE SHAKESPEARE OKAY
On Sunday I caught the final performance of Macbeth at Park Avenue Armory. I’m happy to say that the show was outstanding, and it was the ideal setting for Kenneth Branagh. Lots of reviews referred to the production as “immersive,” which of course it wasn’t really, but the set really was remarkable and almost impossibly vast. I liked the addition of a literal blasted heath. The tickets weren’t cheap, but I’m glad I got decent seats - near enough to see everything quite well, but high enough to be out of the mud splatter zone.
I’ve been thinking about this production again the past few days, maybe because it’s getting warm again and I’m remembering the highlights of last summer. Sometimes I think I don’t ever need to see or read Macbeth again, but then I remember things like this and realize I always have room in my life for more (good) Macbeth.
On Sunday I caught the final performance of Macbeth at Park Avenue Armory. I’m happy to say that the show was outstanding, and it was the ideal setting for Kenneth Branagh. Lots of reviews referred to the production as “immersive,” which of course it wasn’t really, but the set really was remarkable and almost impossibly vast. I liked the addition of a literal blasted heath. The tickets weren’t cheap, but I’m glad I got decent seats - near enough to see everything quite well, but high enough to be out of the mud splatter zone.
Macbeth, in a church, directed by Julia Campanelli, with Careena Melia and Kelly Bartnik and Sai Somboon. I mean I really wouldn’t have needed anything else, but as it happens the rest of the cast were wonderful, as indeed was the entire show. I spent the first half of the show trying to remember how I recognized the (excellent) actor playing Macduff - this of course was David Hywel Baynes, who I eventually realized I had seen as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing on Roosevelt Island. Really there wasn’t anything I could possibly complain about, except how long it takes me to get home from the LES.
The top photo here is mine, the rest were stolen from Stephen Trumon Gray.
Last night was pretty much a perfect New York evening, the kind that makes me happier than I can say with my life as it is right now. And I don’t think there’s a better way to spend the evening of the 4th than at a picnic on the roof of the McKittrick, watching fireworks with friends & fellow drunks.
eleven years ago tonight! I believe this was the only 4th of july event the mckittrick has ever had, and it was also the first event held at gallow green.
