A word of warning before you sit down for this latest version of “Macbeth” on Broadway: read or reread Shakespeare’s tragedy, or at least the playbill’s synopsis. Because if you’re not familiar with the plot and characters, the show won’t make any sense.
This isn’t a snazzy update like the 2008 version starring Patrick Stewart as a fascist ruler, or even a dreamy, impressionistic variation like the site-specific “Sleep No More.”
Instead co-directors John Tiffany (“Once”) and Andrew Goldberg have reimagined the piece as a solo: In this pared-down and edited version, Alan Cumming takes on all the roles.
And there’s another twist. Nearing his violent downfall, Macbeth describes life as “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.” At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the tale is told by a madman.
The production from the National Theatre of Scotland, already seen at last year’s Lincoln Center Festival, begins with a numb-looking Cumming being brought into a some sort of old-fashioned institution: bile-green walls, a pair of steel-framed beds, a claw-footed tub.
A doctor (Jenny Sterlin) and a nurse (Brendan Titley) silently put the man’s belongings in brown bags labeled “Evidence.” They trade his street clothes for white pajamas. During the change we notice a huge scratch on the newcomer’s chest.
The staffers leave the room; the rest of the time they watch the patient — prisoner? — from a glassed window. Occasionally they come in for closer observation and the odd injection.
Left alone, the unnamed man starts declaiming “Macbeth.” It’s unclear if telling the play helps him cope or if he’s hallucinating. It doesn’t really matter.
Cumming goes back and forth between characters with a flick of his hair — cut in a 1980s cold-wave style — and just a few props. As Banquo, he’s casually tossing an apple. For King Duncan, he sits in a wheelchair, legs daintily crossed, and speaks like a spoiled, slightly buffoonish codger. For the three witches, his face pops up on three video screens.
The best scenes involve Lady M, which Cumming plays in a coolly cunning manner. Having stripped naked for a bath, he morphs from Macbeth to his wife and back again with a mere flick of a towel.
Still, this is all befuddling if you don’t know the original text. And even if you do, this “Macbeth” provides no new insights.
The production values are impeccable, from Merle Hensel’s clinical nightmare of a set to sound designer Fergus O’Hare’s scary static buzzes and infra-bass rumbles.
But for what? If you take out the plot and the characters’ psychological motivations and tensions, you’re left with a star vehicle driving in circles.