This is the piece I wrote with my Burn co-creator Steven Hoggett for the Edinburgh International Festival opening of the show in August 2022.
The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley.
So said Burns in To A Mouse, and it also well describes the journey that has brought us here to the opening of Burn at The Edinburgh International Festival 2022!
Alan:
In 2015, I ended my third run as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret. I had just turned fifty and realised I would never be as fit or asked to dance in a show in the same way again. But I felt I still had one more in me! I meant a play or a musical that was dance heavy. Little did I think I would end up making my solo dance theatre debut at age fifty-seven!
In 2018 I went to see my friend Arthur Pita’s show The Tenant at the Joyce Theatre in New York City, and backstage afterwards a causal remark to the theatre’s producer Ross Leclair led him to ask if I had any ideas for dance projects. I said I did. A lunch was arranged to further discuss.
I actually didn’t have an idea, nor a choreographer, but didn’t see either lack as a deterrent. This - whatever this was - was obviously meant to be.
I told Ross I wanted to do something about Robert Burns. I am fascinated by the real stories that lie behind well kent faces, perhaps because I have similarly altered my own narrative. And I told him I wanted to do it with Steven Hoggett and that Steven was on board. Only I hadn’t asked him or even mentioned the idea to him yet.
Steven:
…. which, in any version of events, is unorthodox but not without delight. In an age where everything in theatre seems to take years to pull together, it was a pleasant realization that the initial six months of the usual process had been hurdled quite brilliantly. From our previous work together I knew Alan to be tireless in his process and also surprisingly open when it came to movement and choreography – not always the case when dealing with a leading performer. I had never worked on a one man show before but the idea of a Burns piece was electrifying to me. My own background in Literature had never been fully utilized in making a show. Each of these realities pulled together within seconds of Alan asking if I’d be interested in working with him. It was only at the end of the conversation that it became clear that Alan had already signed me up for the project. For me, this was neither presumptuous nor tactical. It was a huge vote of confidence. It was also a moment of trust from an actor about to take a huge leap of faith.
Over the following months we had a couple of conversations which proved tricky in defining what the show might be. We were, however, both clear and united in having a strong sense of what the piece should NOT be. For me, this is often a crucial starting point – knowing that any previous work will be of no use. This enforces new thinking and creative exercise when it comes to devising a show. It’s also how we might truly arrive at originality and this felt essential for the ideas that Alan was talking about.
Alan and Steven:
We knew we needed time and support to develop this germ of an idea. EIF had very kindly offered to premiere whatever we came up with, and as we had both worked extensively with the National Theatre of Scotland (and indeed had first collaborated on the NTS show The Bacchae, directed by John Tiffany, which premiered at EIF in 2007), we approached them to ask if they would help us explore further. NTS said yes and immediately afforded us the capacity to develop a piece that, so far, was without true form or solid content.
An early intention was to explore the idea of Burns as a national icon and a figure who, under modern scrutiny, was becoming something more complex than the beloved face on tourists’ souvenir biscuit tins. We toyed with comparing Alan’s Scottish male identity alongside Rabbie’s, and looking at male desire and our struggles to contain it - something Alan and Robbie also share. At our first meeting in December 2020 though, that thinking changed entirely.
We had invited Kirsteen McCue to come and talk to us. As Professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture and Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, we expected a brilliant authority on everything Burns (and we were not disappointed). What we did not expect was to meet someone with such a superb sense of enquiry alongside that wisdom. Our discussions with Kirsteen set everything on a completely new trajectory.
She began to show us not just the icon, the myth of Burns, but gave us the context to start to see the man himself. Without us realising it, she had set us free from restraints of our own making. Kirsteen guided us to his letters and there our idea took a very healthy and significant pivot. Feeling tethered to his work alone, as incredible and indelible as it is, was never going to be as revelatory as delving into his extensive correspondence.
This was only made more clear when Kirsteen told us of a yet to be completed thesis by her colleague, Dr Moira Hansen. Moira had examined Burns’ output and presented a fascinating study that lined up his periods of creativity alongside a very distinct ‘mood map’ of his life. Despite this still being in process, Moira very kindly started a dialogue with us and it was from this point that the piece truly began to form.
We ran a second workshop at NTS’ Rockvilla rehearsal space in January of 2022. Amidst a flurry of COVID cases we solidified the show’s shape further and began the actual choreographic process.
At a time when, in some quarters, the theatre industry is on its knees, we have been met with a co-producing team that was ready and eager to provide everything we might need to create something bold, ambitious and illuminating. And unknown.
We feel very privileged to have had our entire thinking turned upside down due to two brilliant and fierce Scottish women, Kirsteen and Moira. They were the catalysts for the creation of a show that we never imagined was the one we wanted to make when we first began this incredible and ridiculous journey.
On behalf of our brilliant creative team here in Edinburgh, thank you to everyone who has afforded us the right to think big at a time when the world seems to keep shaking us and the prevailing wisdom is to play safe. Maybe this is the perfect moment to offer up newness, to reconsider, to - like Burns himself - still dare.