Interview: Alan Cumming Brings His One-Man Show to The Hobby Center

Alan Cumming is coming to Houston to be a part of the BEYOND BROADWAY SERIES brought in by Broadway at the Hobby Center. He will be here for two nights on March 6th and 7th, and he will be doing a one-man show. It’s a rare event for audiences to get up close and personal with a man who has done theatre, television, movies, written books, hosted reality shows, and been a pansexual vegan sex symbol for many years now. Alan is an enigmatic and enthralling performer known for his run as the Emcee in CABARET, his tenure on network television in both THE GOOD WIFE and INTSINCT, and is currently hosting THE TRAITORS on the Peacock streaming service. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got a chance to talk with Alan about his cabaret show coming up, the origins of his involvement with CABARET, and the joys of doing reality television. 

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Brett Cullum: Tell me about your one-man show that's coming up as part of the “Beyond Broadway” series presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center. It's called Alan Cumming IS NOT ACTING HIS AGE! What can we expect?

Alan Cumming: Well, it's sort of like an old-fashioned cabaret. It's me, and I have a band. I sing songs and tell stories all under the theme or the umbrella of getting older, and what is age appropriateness, and things I've noticed about getting older. Mostly, it’s about why is it that we, as a culture, have decided that getting older is the worst possible thing that can happen to us when, of course, it's the only thing that is inevitable in our lives apart from death. And I just I'm really curious about that. And I just exhort people to stay open to life and to experience and not to close themselves down and think I'm too old for that. It's hopefully an uplifting evening with sort of thought provoking. And also lots of funny stories and songs.

Brett Cullum: I can totally relate. I heard a young guy say to me, “I'm 23. I'm old.” And I was like, “Where does this come from?” 

Alan Cumming: Recently. Someone said, “Yeah, he’s 35, but he’s still really hot!” Let's just replay that and see which bit of that sentence I find utterly offensive. Thank you! It's hilarious. But I think there is this thing that everybody deals with, “Oh, I'm too old for that!” Or, “Oh, I can't do that now. I'm in my, whatever forties, fifties, thirties!” It's just ridiculous! I love when kids are twenty-two and say, “Oh, I can't drink like I used to!” And I am thinking. “You’ve only been drinking for a year ?!?”  

Brett Cullum: Have you ever been to Texas before?

Alan Cumming: Yes, I've been. I've done concerts before in Dallas and San Antonio, and I also shot a few films in Austin. So yes, I have a little history with Texas. 

Brett Cullum: So you know what to expect. You're not gonna be freaked out when you see all the cowboys coming down the streets or anything like that? 

Alan Cumming: No! I was in Dallas, where they have this bar. It's the cowboy country dancing bar. Yeah, and there's one that's got good tacos. It sells tacos in the middle of the bar, which I loved. I just loved all these big cowboys with their hats all dancing away. I thought it was great!

Brett Cullum: Can you tell me what are some of your favorite songs to perform in the cabaret? 

Alan Cumming: Some of my favorite songs…  I do so enjoy a mash-up! It means you get more songs for your buck. I kind of end the show with a mashup of “How Did We Come to This?” from THE WILD PARTY, and it goes into “Maybe This Time” from CABARET. It's because they're very similar in the chord structures. When I start, I know that people think I'm going to sing “Maybe This Time” by the chord introduction, and then I don't, and then I do. So I love a little tease as well. And then I sing an Adele song which is really beautiful. “When We Were Young”! And I love singing that, but it's also really tough to sing. I sing very emotional songs.

And so it depends on how I'm feeling and how emotional and volatile I am. Some of them are pretty tough to get through, and I have to really act them and really be in them. It's being in the moment is the most important thing to be as an artist. I think so. I love singing them, but there's something… I'm a bit scared of these songs as well because I sometimes lose it a little bit, like, just get teary, and it's, and you have to be able to both free to be emotional, but also to be able to reign it in. So you don't just start blubbing all over the place.

Brett Cullum: You are identified with reinventing the Emcee in CABARET. How did you end up in that? I noticed that you started on Scottish TV first. Then you moved into the theater and weren't doing musical theater. So, how did you end up in CABARET? Especially in, of all things, a part that only sings. 

Alan Cumming: Yes, it is weird. It was really Sam Mendes his fault. He asked me. I was in London, and I was about twenty-eight or something. And he asked me to do it. I played Hamlet that year and was also a bit sniffy about that. I would say, “You know I don't do musicals!”

And then also, I just sort of said, “Oh, I don't think this is for me. This subject matter is so delicate and so visceral. Sometimes, I worry that the musical form can sort of demean subject matter sometimes because of the structures. 

You know you have these little songs, and you have to dance. You know you've got this sort and that. Sometimes, I don't think that works well for certain topics. Certainly, I was worried about the fact that you had the onslaught of fascism in the late thirties in Germany. 

Anyway, Sam felt the same way. Actually, all my fears were actually what he felt, too. And I said, if I were going to do that, I would want to do it properly, and go back to the original books and try to act like someone who really is in those sleazy clubs, and to sort of make it not a glorification. We kind of tend to make things sweeter than they actually were. And he said that was exactly what he wanted. So, in a funny way, my fears were exactly the same as his were, and we both came to the production wanting to reinvent the story, but by making it its authentic story, its authentic self.

I kind of think it's rare. Actually, that two people, like a leading actor and a director, both come to something with with such a strong connection about what they want to do. I said yes. Eventually, my character became a sort of center of the play, and commenting on it, I saw almost a breakdown happening in the end. And so that's that. So it happened. I did it in London. Immediately after doing HAMLET! I was exhausted. It was ridiculous. HAMLET finished on Saturday at The Donmar Warehouse, and then the first preview of CABARET was on the following Thursday. I always joke that the two overlapped a wee bit. My HAMLET was a little “song and dancey.” My Emcee was having a nervous breakdown. And then we did it, and four years later we did it on Broadway.

Brett Cullum: Coming up to the present day, I am obsessed with THE TRAITORS, which streams on Peacock, but not because of why everybody thinks. I literally watch it only to see what you are wearing! Is that wardrobe anything close to what you wear every day? Do you just spring out of bed in a kilt with a smoky eye? 

Alan Cumming: No, I put some makeup on last night cause we were doing a concert in Minneapolis. Yeah, I had a little smoky eye, and it's a little dribble of it still this morning. But no, I normally do not. 

It's actually kind of great because I get to keep all the wardrobe from THE TRAITORS. I was on tour this weekend, and someone in the band said, “Oh! Those are nice boots!”  I said, “Yeah, THE TRAITORS!” And whenever I wear anything that anyone remarks or points to these days, it's always THE TRAITORS wardrobe. So I kinda don't look like THE TRAITORS in real life ever. I mean, I like getting dressed up and things. I'm going on some talk shows this week, so I've got some nifty little things to wear, but not that level. I mean, I love the way I look in THE TRAITORS because it's really part of the character and the whole idea of how I wanted to play a very esteemed Scottish Laird version of myself. I'm not being not pretending to be me at all, and I even kind of make my accent a bit funny, too. I feel like it's kind of interesting because I'm subverting the form of hosting reality competitions. I'm actually acting as well, which is, I guess it's my way of doing it. 

That's what they want me to do. Why would you ask me otherwise? I thought, “Oh, I see. So I'm gonna be this heightened sort of James Bond. Villain sort of person?” and I absolutely adore it. It's such fun to do because I am as obsessed at the moment with what's going on, and who's getting banished, and who's getting murdered, that as people are when they watch it. But it happens in real-time for me. So I'm immersed in this world where I go home, I have the Round Table, and then that's the end of my day, and I get driven home. But I can't go to sleep until I know who the traitors have murdered. So I make the producer text me, and like a little boy, I can't go to sleep, and then I go, “OH MY GOD!” And then the next morning, I'm back in.

I have a camera and a big screen in my room when I get ready with all the little feeds of the cameras, so I can sort of snip on them when they're doing the reality parts. But I feel like a James Bond villain in his lair.

Brett Cullum: You are a member and supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community. Which do you consider yourself? What letter do you own? 

Alan Cumming: I would be a “B.”

I've always thought of myself as bisexual, and I ping-ponged back and forth between genders. Early on, I was married to a woman, and then I was with a man, and then I was with another woman, and it went like that. Now, the pendulum has kind of swung a little. I've been married to my husband and been with him for about twenty years. But I still would always consider myself to be bisexual. My circumstances have changed, and I'm very comfortable with where I am, but I think it's also important. I think bisexuals are, or the concept of bisexuality is, something that has always been in doubt. And I just make a point of saying that so that people know that it's good. You know you can have a gay priest, so why can't you have a bisexual married man?

Alan’s photo is provided by Francis Hills 

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