И, раз уж речь сегодня о текстах, мне хотелось бы рассказать о забавной (надеюсь, вы тоже сочтете ее забавной) книге.
Аллан Браун, "50 людей, которые подвели Шотландию"
(ну, переведем это так)
Обложка
О книге
На волне событий и публикаций, связанных с обсуждением независимости Шотландии, решил высказаться и Аллан Браун - бывший редактор Sunday Times Scotland. Его книга "50 людей, которые подвели Шотландию" - серия портретных зарисовок о знаменитых шотландцах, выходцах из Шотландии или хотя бы родившихся там. Но это не галерея знаменитых соотечественников, скорее наоборот - срывание покровов и клеймение. Аллан Браун обнажает неприятные факты, замалчиваемые эпизоды, срывает маски, сдирает позолоту и все в таком духе. Его книга - сборник не то политически-исторически-культурных карикатур, не то вовсе сведение счетов. А реакцию читателей, наверное, лучше всего передает вот этот комментарий на сайте "Wings over Scotland" (сайт, который отслеживает представленность Шотландии в медиасфере):
Excuse my français here …but who the F*** is Allan Brown???
Перепечатка на сайте статьи Брауна, в которой он анонсирует и объясняет свою книгу - здесь.
Но ближе к делу. Кто же эти 50 отъявленных негодяев, которые своими недостойными жизнями, неприятными поступками и бездарными карьерами подвели Шотландию? Список довольной пестрый, поскольку он охватывает последние лет 400, в нем есть и политики, и литераторы, и деятели искусства всех мастей. Полный список приводить не буду, да и не знаю многих в нем, признаюсь честно, так что ограничимся лишь некоторыми. Итак, позор Шотландии, поименно, но вразброс: Карл III ака Красавчик принц Чарли (предводитель второго якобитского восстания и претендент на английский престол), Александр Белл (изобретатель телефона), Роберт Бернс (поэт), Жан Кальвин (религиозный деятель), Артур Конан Дойль ("папа" Шерлока Холмса), Гордон Рамзи (знаменитый шеф-повар), Джоан Роулинг ("мама" Гарри Поттера), Алан Камминг (причина, по который мы здесь собрались)... В общем, неплохая компания.
Об Алане
Чем же позорит Шотландию Алан Камминг? Если кратко - тем, что он слишком яркий, слишком заметный, участвует во всех событиях, открытиях, мероприятиях, жаждет внимания прессы; что он достиг зенита славы в 98 году, получив Тони и Оливье, а с тех пор его карьера катится вниз, докатилась до озвучивания "Гарфилда" и участия в "Робоцыпе" и скоро, видимо, пробьет дно; что со своими взглядами на политику и сексуальность он всегда на гребне волны и в тренде.
Дальше идет полный текст главы из книги на английском. Возможно, когда-нибудь переведем.
Глава "Alan Cumming" (в оригинале)
I met Alan Cumming once, in a theatre in the Strand, to profile him for a newspaper. At one point in the conversation his Blackberry buzzed. Up flashed the name of the caller – Sue Gorgeous. It would have been nice to discover Sue was, say, an auxiliary nurse from Bathgate. But given that she was calling Cumming – one of the most shiningly flamboyant artistes on earth, someone once described as "a frolicky pansexual sex symbol for the new millennium" – the greater likelihood was that Sue was the stylist who weaves peacock feathers into Cher's hair or somesuch. The actor/singer/whatever took the call and informed Sue he was unable to talk because he having his picture taken. By dint of statistical probability, Sue should have assumed this. Cumming is always having his picture taken – usually at film premieres or Broadway first nights or at the kind of political rallies beloved of American liberal celebrities, a fraternity Cumming took pains to infiltrate. Or because he is launching his own brand of perfume. Or receiving an OBE. Or promoting his novel. Cumming exceeds the classic formulation of VIP desperation: he would turn up for the opening of not just an envelope but the opening of the cellophane pack from which the envelope was extracted. Make no mistake, in the gymkhana of modern celebrity there can be no greater show pony than Alan Cumming.
How you feel about this and about Cumming depends, one supposes, upon the temperature of your temperament. In the contemporary parlance Cumming is Marmite kind of performer. You either love him or you itch to be left alone with him in a custody cell. You either find him twinkly and scintillating, a crisply camp delight; or you're convinced he is in the grip of a self-love so intense it borders on the pathological. You believe either that Cumming needs suitable outlets for his many talents, or the attentions of psychopath with a large croquet mallet. Of course, similar criticisms can be made of many actors, and comedians too; each is a nightmarish breed. But Cumming takes the flaw to new, Olympian, sky-scraping, shameless heights. You rather get the impression he's been practising his autograph since the age of eight. There is little middle ground with Cumming: in the mind's eye he is either engaged in an admirable but fatiguing round of rehearsal, benefits, committees and charity work. Or he's undertaking a photoshoot for Photoshoot Monthly in which he sprawls naked on a bed strewn with dollar bills, laughing maniacally, while crowds in the street below scream "Hey, Alan, New York loves your nipples!" This writer is firmly of the second opinion. There's no gain saying the fact that Cumming's career has had its triumphs. Chief amongst these were the Tony he won in 1998 for playing the MC in the New York production of Cabaret and, in London, an Olivier award for Accidental Death of an Anarchist. These were the shining peaks. Way below them, however, are the litter and detritus. Cumming has had the kind of professional life that suggests his answering machine announces: "Hi, you've reached Alan. I'll do it". Not even Orson Welles in the frozen-pea and sherry advertising doldrums of his career approached his day job with such wanton, cheque-pocketing promiscuity. You name it and Cumming will turn up bright and early Monday morning to chew his way through it: the role of Bruno the Bear in television series Shoebox Zoo, for instance; or a video-game voiceover; or cameos in the movie versions of The Smurfs and Garfield; a thousand campy walk-ons in a thousand American sit-coms; or his recurring role in the television series Robot Chicken. Over the remainder it would perhaps be kindest to draw a veil, or perhaps a tarpaulin. Suffice to say, it is difficult to identify another actor so hell-bent on forgetting the quality in favour of feeling the width. There are headless pigeons with a methodology clearer and more cogent than the one employed by Cumming. It is truly a grim day when we look to the acting profession for discretion and constancy but this is what Cumming obliges us wistfully to do, such is his own hog-snorting, rip-roaring stampede for an orgiastic, omnipresent kind of ubiquity. You wonder why Cumming does it, you really do. Surely he can't need the money? He could stay at home and admire his collection of mirrors but, then, the only person he'd hear using the phrase "I really like what you're doing there, Alan!" would be himself. He is reminiscent of the book reviewer. As depicted by George Orwell; a man who is 'pouring his immortal spirit down the drain, half a pint at a time'.
So who is Cumming anyway? As with Piers Morgan, there are two versions of him: the British one and the American one. When he'd been based in the UK Cumming had been mildly diverting, as a spear-carrier on television soap operas and in revue a campy lampooner of the Scottish bourgeois gentilhomme, with the Victor and Barry double act he and Forbes Masson performed throughout the 1980s. The 1990s brought a starker commitment to sexuality and its politics. Cumming split from his wife, actress Hilary Lyon, declared himself bisexual and became a poster boy for everyone on the wilder shores of the sexual mainstream, with his campaigning for sexual health and theatrical choices: in Bent, Cabaret and as Dionysius in the National Theatre of Scotland's production of The Bacchae. It was in America, though, that Cumming realized himself fully and spun out most vigorously the kaleidoscopes of his sexual and showbiz identities. In 2008 he adopted dual citizenship.
You will have noticed that some of the remarks above are prescriptive and presumptuous. Who are any of us to criticize a man's freely made, law-abiding choices? It isn't as though Cumming brings nothing to the party more generally. He does what he can to add to the, well, gaiety of nations. He is by all accounts very nice to his elderly mother. He continues to work with the National Theatre of Scotland and thereby he allows a measure of Broadway star power to illuminate the stages of Glasgow and Edinburgh. He engages in the cultural life of Scotland as fully as his obligations permit, by judging theatrical awards, for example, or narrating BBC Scotland documentaries. To a heartening extent, he makes himself available and approachable. Which is nice.
By the same token, serial killers seldom get far if they refuse to live the house. Cumming's accessibility is merely a function of his pathology, of his chronic and acute malady. This can be looked at in two ways. Cumming could behave as he does from a combination of love and altruism; because he adores performing and refuses to consider as meaningful distinctions between high and low culture, between Phaedra and Garfield. Maybe he launches perfumes and undertakes his own cable television chat shows and posts clips of his previous performances on YouTube and tweets and writes novels and journalism wholly because he nurses an abiding interest in the processes of the media, with the varying disciplines of communication. Or maybe he has found that the acclaim and adulation heaped upon award-winning actors proves in the end to be, you know, insufficient. As with all addicts, the dosage needs to be upped and the frequency of ingestion increased. No other explanation suffices. We are dealing with a man of titanic self-fascination. To an extent this can be understood: his journey from Aberfeldy to Hollywood, via Taggart and Take The High Road, has been truly impressive. Yet similar journeys have been made by many Scots: Sean Connery, Ewan McGregor and Gerard Butler among them. None appear to have the inclination Cumming does. Who has the time, or the energy?
As a postscript to this. In January 2013 a thirty-four-year-old man from North Yorkshire appeared at Stratford magistrates court charged with two public order offences at the Olympic games the previous summer. Taken into custody the man signed his statement Alan Cumming. Meanwhile, somewhere in New York, a Scotsman turned away from his collection of antique mirrors and smiled.