Alan Cumming to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in new one-man production
The National Theatre of Scotland has announced it will be staging a one-man version of Macbeth featuring Alan Cumming as both the title character and his ambitious wife.
Cumming, who received an OBE in 2009 for services to the arts and for his gay rights campaign work, said: “I have been obsessed with the play all my life. It was the first Shakespeare I was in, at the Tron in Glasgow.
“Speaking to John Tiffany in New York, earlier this year, I had this idea I wanted to swap the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, because there are so many things about gender, I thought it would be a really exciting idea to flip that.
“So we did this reading like that, in New York, and Andy Goldberg had this idea I should just play all the parts. Never one to refuse a challenge, we decided to do it.”
The play will be shown in Glasgow, Scotland, as well as in New York, as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s newly-announced 2012 season.
The programme also includes Glasgow Girls, a musical about teenage asylum seekers, My Shrinking Life, which examines life with multiple sclerosis , and a musical version of The Wicker Man.
NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone said: “The National Theatre of Scotland was created to reach and appeal to a wide range of diverse audiences across Scotland. Our 2012 season, in collaboration with so many of Scotland’s extraordinary artists and companies is an example of that.”
