Synopses & Reviews
Tony Award winner Alan Cumming in his riveting solo interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.Star of stage, film and television Alan Cumming delivers a virtuoso performance playing every role in the National Theatre of Scotland’s bold presentation of Shakespeare’s chilling tale of desire, ambition, and the supernatural.
This radical reimagining of one of Shakespeare’s most deeply psychological plays is set in a psychiatric unit in which Cumming is the lone patient. Channeling the story of Macbeth, he is inhabited in turn by each of the characters of the drama, including some of Shakespeare’s most complex and troubled creations.
Cumming’s one-man interpretation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play comes to audio directly from acclaimed limited stage engagements with the National Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow and at New York’s Lincoln Center. Directed for audio by the stage production’s renowned directors, this exclusive studio recording of Cumming’s dazzling solo performance captures the excitement, passion and poetry of a wildly original tour-de-force that is destined to become theatrical legend.
Review
"Macbeth is a blast...ghoulish...beguiling...sardonic...an expression of how captivating an evening of crackling Shakespeare can be." -- Peter Marks, The Washington Post
Review
"The explosive and overwhelming effect of a truck bomb...this horrific, riveting Macbeth ought to be seen by as many people as possible." -- Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
About the Author
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—their older daughter Susanna and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent, not in Stratford, but in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright, but as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare is thought to have retired from the stage and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616.Alan Cumming is a Tony Award-winning actor whose theater credits include Cabaret, The Seagull, Hamlet, and The Threepenny Opera. His films include the Spy Kids trilogy, The Smurfs, The Anniversary Party, X2: X-Men United, Goldeneye, Emma, Circle of Friends and Eyes Wide Shut. On television he has appeared on The Good Wife, Sex and the City, Frasier, Third Rock From the Sun, The L Word, and many more. He has also written a novel, Tommy's Tale, and released an album, A Bought a Blue Car Today.