This unique production of Macbeth revisits the Shakespearean tragedy in the mind of a lone patient in a clinical room deep within a psych ward. Alan Cumming retells the classic story, playing every role, while the production utilizes multimedia in its reinterpretation of the text.
What Is the Story of Macbeth?
In this chilling reimagined production of Macbeth, Tony winner Alan Cumming tackles nearly every role in Shakespeare’s iconic fight for the Scottish throne, including Lady Macbeth, Banquo, the three witches and of course, Macbeth. Set in an eerie mental institution, the story is told by a lone psychiatric patient through the use of surveillance cameras, props and an observing doctor and orderly who periodically check in on him. As the drama in Shakespeare’s masterpiece intensifies, the patient slips further into his own madness.
"Directors John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg layer the production with spooky sounds and moody music and keep Cumming on the move—he races up stairs, climbs atop tables, gazes into a mirror and gets chatty with a doll."
New York Daily News
Joe Dziemianowicz
"The actor even makes a convincing Lady Macbeth, who in his interpretation emerges as a frankly earthy figure willing to use sex as a bargaining tool."
Entertainment Weekly
Thom Geier
"In a sad, emotionally draining and bravura perf, [Cumming] makes it seem as if every psychosis and hallucination in the play is an expression of one man’s fragile state of mind."
Variety
Mark Fisher
"The original moments of ingenuity…make this 'Macbeth' impossible to stop watching: Cumming’s Duncan as a pompous English fool seated in a wheelchair instead of a throne, Macbeth consulting with the assassin of Banquo in a mirror and Malcolm portrayed as a baby doll."
Associated Press
Mark Kennedy
"The murderous general of the title is portrayed by the Scotland-born Alan Cumming, whose rich, rolling accent brings a whiff of the green highlands with it."
The New York Times
Charles Isherwood