Irreverent. Hilarious. Gross. Perfect. Intimate. Alan Cumming was all those things and more at Bing on Thursday night, charming just about everyone (except for a couple elderly ladies probably clutching their pearls for dear life – not my words, his). Running the show like an intimate cabaret, Cumming volleyed between spot-on “hilarious showbiz anecdotes,” very personal family history and, of course, sappy songs.
Although Cumming is a very capable singer with a strong, charismatic voice, his in-between banter with the audience was the real gold of the evening. It’s strange to say that someone’s small talk was the most interesting part, but with Alan Cumming it really was. It didn’t matter if you were the greatest Cumming fan who had always adored his sassy, always-slightly-stressed character on “The Good Wife” or revered him for originating the Emcee in “Cabaret,” or if you had no idea who the hell this crazy guy singing pop songs with a Scottish accent was. It doesn’t matter because Alan Cumming is a born entertainer. He could read tax forms aloud and I would be entertained. (Just think of a snarkier, Scottish Phoebe Buffay).
The set program itself was strange, as Cumming sang a broad range of songs varying from Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” to a jingle he wrote for Trojan Condoms to a Sondheim mashup (just to prove that all Sondheim songs sound the same). Cumming’s pop song renditions were less convincing, at times jolting me out of the cabaret-esque suspension of disbelief that Cumming does so well. The slightly gross story about removing a groin tattoo of the name of his former lover (Raven) was more enjoyable than the karaoke-like pop medley Cumming sang afterwards as a musical reply of sorts to Raven, a medley he calls “Someone Like the Edge of Firework.”
Though singing contemporary songs does add to his charming eccentricity, the difference in Cumming’s power over the audience was so much more palpable when he sang “Ladies Who Lunch” as his encore, complete with an actual martini in hand. As he belted the words “Rise, rise, rise,” raising his arms in supplication, the audience had virtually no choice but to rise with him at the end of the song. And that’s how the night ended, with a slightly crazed standing ovation. The epitome of theatrical, Cumming just belongs on the Broadway stage, singing classic, dramatic ballads with his ridiculous, over-the-top hand gestures (his Broadway-level diction is probably just too much for Avril Lavigne songs).
If all that wasn’t enough, Cumming stayed over the next night to perform another more intimate cabaret show and then throw the greatest after-party that has ever graced Bing Hall: Club Cumming. Having started the legendary event in his “Cabaret” dressing room at Studio 54, Cumming now revisits the tradition annually on his birthday. As I learned to expect by this point, the party was both bizarre and wholly entertaining. For starters, I was both weirded out and thankful to Bing for hosting this event in their lobby. The crowd, made up of well-dressed, older Bing-goers who had probably just come out of the show, clearly didn’t know what they were getting into. During the club music-type songs, some stood, painfully awkward, in the middle of the floor. However, others, including the tiniest old lady with pure white hair, ended up rocking the fuck out in the front row of the mosh pit and taking selfies with Cumming (go you, Grandma!). The other 20 percent of the crowd, which grew to about 40 percent by the end of the night, were students, mostly theater kids (like me), who were fans of Cumming.
Onstage, Cumming DJed, wearing a homemade Stanford bro tank and holding a single drumstick that he frequently used to hit the cymbals for emphasis. It was clear that Cumming has an incredibly broad range of tastes, ranging from ultimate dancing songs like “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” to “It’s Raining Men.” At later points in the night, Cumming sent a very personalized message to Trump by playing Lily Allen’s “Fuck You (Very Much)” and crowd-surfed during the “Circle of Life.” As he sailed over my head and I freaked out over having touched his stomach for a brief second, it struck me what this party was: an outrageous and utterly devious opportunity for us to glorify him and everything he stands for, including LGBTQ rights, Broadway and hedonism. As someone who can now say she’s partied with Alan Cumming on his birthday, I am entirely okay with that.
Bonus list of choice Alan Cumming quotes:
- “I was the daddy hedgehog to Miley Cyrus.”
- “Dancing my tits off in a kick line with girls half my age.”
- “I always think Eli [Cumming’s “The Good Wife” character] is just one eyebrow raise away.”
- (Bragging about the affair his character had with Vanessa Williams): “Which makes me Mr. America!”
- (About pop songs): “They’re all the fucking same!”
Cumming’s show, “Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs,” is available as a live-recorded album on Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.
Contact Andrea Lim at anlim ‘at’ stanford.edu.