Theatre at its very best

[eilidhsd]

Just in from the most phenomenal performance I have ever seen of Macbeth.

Essentially it is a one-man show by Alan Cumming and it is incredible. He never stops; there is no interval; and there was complete and utter silence in the theatre - it felt as if the whole audience was holding its breath right through.

My eyes tell me this is a stark naked wet man, but my mind knows it is Lady Macbeth. That's how strong that performance was.
(Yeah, OK, I'm not too old that I don't notice these details and, besides, I was in the second front row on the side where the bath was. The Bath. Of course there is a bath. How else can a stark naked wet man carry off a performance of Lady Macbeth's strongest speech?)

If you need the facts, it is set in an old-fashioned psychiatric ward with echoing green-tiled walls, and that makes it sound gimmicky but it is not.

There is the minimum of furniture and nothing to distract you from those powerful words and that equally powerful body.

He can look frail in the cream hospital tee and pants, and slight enough that he can be lifted and carried, but his body moves non-stop, pacing, wiping his hands down his tee, his foot tapping as he reasons why Banquo must die, the veins standing out on his neck as he talks to the assassin, Macbeth's raw emotion shaking his deranged frame, and his dying legs pushing against the wall at the end. His encounter with Banquo's ghost, which left him curled in a tiny, trembling, sobbing ball, was terrifying.

He got a stupendous standing ovation at the end.

It is a play I have seen often, but never as powerfully as this. The nieces were spellbound.

And I'm posting this for my American cousins because once it closes in Glasgow, it's opening in New York. And I wish I could kick over the traces and follow him over.