MACBETH

Originally a Glasgow/New York stage production, Alan Cumming’s one-man reimagining of MACBETH is set in a psychiatric unit in which Cumming is the sole patient. Whispered stage directions work to heighten the profound creepiness of this production. Cumming’s Lady Macbeth is almost sickening in her thirst for power, and his Macduff is youthful, tragic, but resolute. But it is Cumming’s Macbeth who truly underscores the excellence of this audio. He doesn’t simply play Macbeth as an evil man who, bullied by his wife, acts on his ambitions and meets his inevitable bloody end. Instead, Cumming taps into a deeper facet of Macbeth, finding a man who initially seems more lost than avaricious and deepening the tragedy by suggesting that fate could have dealt Macbeth a different hand. A.H.A. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2012]