AlBarclay

Final phase in the plan for this As You Like It takes place where it all began. Where the audition took place all those months ago.

It’s a great big building, an extension of the Notre Dame campus in Indiana, but located here in London. It’s more or less opposite the stage door of The Haymarket Theatre, from whence I would emerge every night when I was working as an usher there. Just by The National Portrait Gallery.

Up in Trafalgar Hall, we put down our ivy boundary and covered it with our purple material. That’s the stage. And then we worked out how to cut the hell out of the script. We needed to hack about half an hour off it. Somehow we did it, mostly from the middle. They need the start to establish things, WE need the final scene intact as it was such an almighty headfuck to make it work with just the five of us and every character on stage.

I honestly don’t know how we did it but we did. Loads of stuff went, whole scenes went. We would honestly have cut All The World’s a Stage if we could. It doesn’t further the narrative in any way. But it’s too famous to slice. “Kill your darlings,” I was taught at drama school. Just because you love doing a scene doesn’t mean it is necessary. We all lost bits we love today, I have no doubt, but now we have a version running at one and a half hours with no interval. I don’t think we could have been able to do that at the start of this process, but we know it now and thankfully the dynamic makes it possible.

First ever show from this company in that hall and they have been angling to do it for ages.

The audience was a load of American students from having grad school at the London campus. Closed shop. The front row of the audience was almost completely empty on both sides, which is never a good sign. They were all on the same level. Owing to the room configuration, we played it in a diamond shape, like we were the altar in a cruciform church. Some audience were there for the extra credit, some were big Shakespeare fans. It landed very well, although we had to work harder for reactions than ever before, but largely that was because they didn’t feel certain they were allowed to laugh. They did though, and they invested and they went silent from time to time.

Early class tomorrow, too early. I’m getting my head down now. Can barely keep my eyes open anyway. I will miss this when it is over … Zzz

It’s all kicking off in the Middle East… I’m planning on putting Lou on a plane to Mumbai via Dubai in a few days, and if it was today that would be cancelled. I don’t think anyone will be specifically targeting productions of Wicked, or anything really in Mumbai. But still it is enough to spark concern from those that love her.

She was in Dubai last week and it looks like there’s been some collateral there already. She had a massage in a hotel that is on fire as I write.

Kuwait airport has been hit? She’s supposed to be flying there before long…

There’s a lot of money in Dubai. With that comes power. With power comes the chance of mediation. But the last thing we need on this global stage is more full on fucking war in the middle east. And it looks like things have escalated pretty thoroughly over there. I’m getting the news live from Lou as I write.

I started off saying “ahh it’s just posturing” but actually she was sending me videos late at night walking home of buildings that are now evacuated. “The one thing about this town is it is so safe,” she was saying. The area she was walking in has been hit by missiles and drones from Iran. I tried to Google “Who shot first”. Too much noise to be certain but I get the feeling it’s gonna be Netanyahu, what with it being Ramadan right now, the holy month, I would be very surprised if it was the other way round. But if it has already spun out into so many countries I get the terrible feeling we are about to have a load more fuckery to join the epic world fuckery we have already been trying to ignore.

Interesting times, indeed. Far too fucking interesting if you ask me. My guess is that, with one of the rumours being that Khomeini is dead, it has been a successful targeted strike on him. He’s devout so likely more predictable at Ramadan. But if that happened then that is a scandalous almost impossible disrespect of a faith in their holy month. Whoever can push the Iranian buttons is likely pushing as many as they can. And I’m sure whoever provided the arms for the strike on Khom will tell us in caps before long that he’s STOPPED NUKES, and then ask for a peace prize. And maybe … they are extremely close to enriching uranium. This is a dangerous time to be alive. Easter gonna keep the MI6 very very busy as our next holy festival… Christmas too. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to the future much globally. Peace prize? Seriously?

A week is a long time and things change fast. For now best to just let it settle and we will inevitably have more clarity over time. I’m glad she’s back here tonight with me in Brighton at least. We went walkies in nature and I’m feeling pretty good about jetlaggery. Gotta do a show tomorrow and be all energetic and enriching and whatnot. Might as well have a bath and try not to go down a news hole.

The show must go on? Well, yes, that’s why Brian has been to Kyiv twice in the last year or so. But nobody wants to get blown up for a musical about witches.

I often think of my old contrarian dad though at times like this. His memory voice and my learned voice start to blend now, too much time has passed, some of it is dad, but much of it is me these days, and my memory of how he reacted to things. “Wait a week or so, and then you’ll be able to get really cheap holidays and flights to India. Everyone is going to be cancelling, they’ll be desperate for business”. He’s not wrong…

More or less the moment I got onto the plane last night my phone screen went apeshit apropos of nothing. It seems the temporary fix I did was temporary but at least it got me home. But I can hopefully find some boff in Lewisham to install a new glass screen on it but for the moment the process of writing on it is mostly guesswork.

There’s a bright pair of lines on the the right of the screen like a fucking plasma ray cutting through my typing space, but the fault is entirely a visual fault. Still they only ever fix both screens at once. At least it made it all the way round the tour and then went blooie when it was no longer crucial. There was a bit of negotiation over how I was going to prove I had bought a digital only national express ticket Heathrow to Brighton, but then this plasma ray thing started happening. I think the pressure of the airplane probably contributed to the screen going completely blank when this first started.

We rely on these things way too much. If Lou hadn’t known what bus I was on things would have been much less smooth, but actually here we all are in Brighton and there are cats and good good food and excellent company. And since I can’t write properly on this screen I’m giving myself a free pass…

At least I’ll schedule it for the time you’re all used to instead of just hitting publish as soon as it is written. That’s the American way.

That was a whistle stop to New Orleans but in excellent company. Mel knows this city well so she was an excellent tour manager, plus she has a car and managed to find a house for us both to live in. We hit the underside of this town.

Hurricane Katrina seeded lasting damage into the structures of the town here and to people’s expectations. Everyone has a story if they were there. And all over the town there are buildings gutted – huge buildings, small houses. The hospitals all got abandoned and have never been reused. “They had to euthanise some of the patients.” These huge buildings have been squatted since, gutted since. Some are for sale, others are just abandoned. But with the work needed, or the cost of demolition, the land isn’t worth the building. It’s a buyers market in town but its all sinking and nobody trusts the levees anymore. It’ll happen again, it’s just when.

We went for lunch in a Creole Restaurant. It’s fancy and they sell martinis for 25c on a Thursday lunch so all the tables were dotted with colour.

I couldn’t get through my pork it was so rich. The turtle soup was great as well but everything so complicated. I’m glad we went though. Afterwards we walked around the area looking at all the huge houses, full or empty, dotted through this fancy part of town.

I hate that it’s cold in England. But at least I can be happy that I’ve been away through the darkest months. Maybe the light will come back now, maybe I’ll be able to drag it back with me from the swamps here. I’m at the airport right now sweating like a dog in my suit and my coat with my boots on. They moved me to a middle seat because “the emergency exit isn’t working” so instead of having a peaceful window seat with legroom I’m gonna be in the middle and I’m so angry about it that I’m having to manage my breathing to make sure I’ll still be able to sleep. I really want to be able to rest on this flight so I can beat the jetlag fast. They’ve absolutely fucked me. Hopefully the woman next to me won’t be coughing all flight this time.

My hope is that it turns out to be oversubscribed and they upgrade me. Or I’m just gonna try and use my digital boarding pass with my old seat allocation. “Emergency exit not working” sounds like they’ve cleared it so flight staff can sleep.

Well then. Yesterday happened.

We started very contemplatively, going to mother Miriam. She’s 83 now. Mel has been bringing her cake for years. She has a new temple / shop. The last place got bad juju when an upstairs neighbour did some crazy stuff post Katrina and boiled an ex girlfriend.

Miriam spoke to us for some time and I swear to God she gave us that time back when we were done. We both listened and contributed to a very involved conversation about The Caspian Sea and the nature of immediacy and expectations versus reality. There in her shop, surrounded by all her powerful stuff, time stood still awhile. I’ve never encountered it quite like that. But we left that house the moment we entered it. And I got some Florida Water and some incense that I’m supposed to give to Lou. I asked her to send some good stuff to her. I want the light to be flowing into her life right now.

We went back to The French Quarter, stopped at Napoleon’s House. They built a house as they were gonna bust him out of St Helena with my great great grandpa, but he died before it came to fruition.

The picture ringed is a picture of him post surrender on the Bellerophon. It has my great grandfather and my great great grandfather in it. The original is in The Tate, but we have many copies in the family. It’s nice to see my ancestors on the wall here.

Then the mallort. Never again.

Today we woke up as early as possible with that stuff bleeding out of me, and we went to The House of Dance and Feathers. Madame Minnie showed us round. Another incredible history and testament to positive change through art, these dangerous boys working all year to sew beads onto garments so they can trash talk each other at Mardi Gras looking like vast beautiful shining Gods, in things they have hand sewn over months and months.

The cycle of this city, it sweeps people up. Mardi Gras is barely finished and already everyone is planning the next one, spitballing names for things, testing ideas. This is a place of light and decay hand in hand. “We just keep on living until we can’t no more and when we can’t no more we just … disappear.” That’s Madam Minnie. She’s just had her birthday, she’s older than she looks and she’s still fire. She’s only gonna open the door if she likes you. Mel knows the people, has lived the life, can talk the talk. I’m just in her wake here, and I’m happy with that.

I’m all packed up and checked in, heading to bed, back to blighty tomorrow. Damn. This has been an appropriate unexpected blast. Gathering time again now.

Wow. I’m starting to worry I’m not gonna be able to write to you.

I thought I’d start. I’m at a jazz bar. But I got mallorted.

Someone decided I was being too well behaved so they got me a shot involving wormwood absinthe and who the fuck knows what else. Christ. I am at least indoctrinated in some way. Essentially it was being hazed by two separate crews.

This town has been remarkable.

Mel took me to The End of the World, behind the squatted naval base in bywater. Wasteground and people have constructed shrines for loved ones taken too early. Ashes to the river but these memorials that stand for as long as we collectively wish them to stand.

The societal respect in this country is deeper than what we have in the uk. Some disaffected fucknut would almost immediately deconstruct these things if it was in England. These things are only gonna be fleeting, but let them rot like we do. Once they are built there’s no stupid kid who prioritises their own noise. Shrines.

A malort is a herbal distillate with wormwood. I asked Mel to define it. “It’s like anger in a bottle”. Well. I trusted and slammed. I have no anger. But it was the end of the evening as far as I was concerned.

Thankfully Mel is one of my oldest and closest friends. I’m safe. She’s got me. I told her about the woman passed out in the snowy gutter in Chicago. Nobody is trying to establish themselves as anything in this city. Everything that’s interesting here is in the gutter. This city understands mortality. We are a breath on the wind.

This place goes deep and I feel it. This evening they blindsided me. Mel is strong here and she fits. We stopped at the Columns Hotel, and she was there for a few months when she was teenager, before she trained as an actor at RADA with other friends of mine, in her early teens.

I can’t stay awake and I am astonished I have written sentences in this state.

Desire Street. There used to be a streetcar here. Now the rails are mostly covered but from time to time they poke out through the bad roads. Potholes and badly rigged wiring. Houses with personality.

“A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.”

This street is straight. This town is curved.

“We are all dancing at the foot of the volcano,” says Mel. This is an end of the line town. “Like Brighton,” I venture. But hotter. And connected to a bigger country. There’s theatre on the streets, there’s music and madness, and juju and art. Katrina was a huge thing for this town, much more so than COVID. The place was destroyed. Empty lots still sit next to the places that were swarmed by venture capitalists in the wake of the disaster. You have to be able to buy outright here, because insurance on a mortgage is off the scale. This is the Mississippi Delta. Flooding is easy.

In the French quarter, amidst all the trumpeting and song, the vibrant life, there are still gas lamps burning in the fronts of houses. Somewhere in the world where that still happens even despite the fires of the hurricane. A conflicting happiness to see them. The true environmental damage is done by the corporations, we all know this. Let the weird bar have a flickering lantern a few years more. None of us are perfect.

So we listened to music, we looked at buildings, we walked to the delta, we met the queens. We ate some of the best Vietnamese food. “Transferrable skills – this is a swamp. They came here and were better at catching shrimp and growing rice.

I knew I would like this town but I hadn’t expected it to get into my blood so quickly. Mel has been biting at me to get here for Mardi Gras every year for about a decade. Next year she and J9 will be the queens of their crew. I think I’m gonna have to make space in the calendar.

For now I’m just happy for the fact that despite all my expectations I’ve landed full on my feet again, living here on Desire in a house with Mel in the other room and we have a kitchen and shared bathroom and a door I can close and I am not on anyone’s sofa and don’t have to juggle my time to anyone else’s schedule. Thank the good lord for old friends.

It is cold here but bright. The only sound is the trains, and that’s a universal thing in America as they have to honk as they carry their freight as the line often crosses roads with no barriers. “Everyone knows someone whose car was hit by a train,” says Mel when I ask about it. But it was the same in Virginia, in Arkansas. I remember it being the same in Maine. “It’s a romantic sound, something from a bygone era,” says Mel. And yes. Maybe I’ll miss it when its gone. Like airport announcements.

They all went to gospel brunch and had breakfast brisket. I needed to pack. I’ll be sofa surfing mostly for the next few days I think, so I’m gonna need to be streamlined. Mardi Gras just finished and my good friend runs with one of the crews so I’m gonna hang out with her, partied out perhaps, but I’m knackered too. First time I’ve ever met her on her home territory. We have been friends so long I’ve got friends who were born after we met.

This job is glorious, but it is theatre and even though it is paid competitively, after agents fees, tax and upkeep on the flat I’m not coming back with any more than I had when I left. But the experience is enough. We all know it’s why I’m in this whole existence game.

So perhaps I should have gone to brunch, but I’ve been very happy to just rest in the gaps this week in Austin. I’ve been in this town a month of my life, spread out over fourteen years sure, but still a month.

The hotel parking was by valet only and it really stuck in my craw to do it as it is an absurdly expensive thing to do and then they all want tips. David signed it off though at UTA so I went ahead despite my better judgement. I want the people who book us, like David, to prioritise getting the actors from the London stage to come to their institutions. All hidden costs, extra petrol charges, valet charges, everything like that – it makes the person who books the company a little more personally aware of the cost of having us on their programme. Creative longevity is more important than personal convenience. Says the man who has blown over 25 years chasing a frequently low paid vocation. Although none of us had time to juggle cars during that last residency.

Three tours over twelve years. This one much shorter than the rest cos Trump. I’ve had such a treat with these guys and this play and this line. Adam filters and amplifies other people’s thoughts. Le Beau bombasts and gives permission to laugh. Silvius reminds us of our teenage immediacy. Jaques fools admirably but is too pompous to see his own foolishness. Hymen is mostly just singing his lines and hoping his fingers are on the right stops. The rest of the time I’m just trying to make sure I’ve got the right harp in my pocket, and working out which end of the fucking hoodie is the business end.

Oh yeah so there’s a link now. You can pay money to see us in Marylebone on Sunday. Here’s the link. If you click it you might get a free pet chicken. No promises.

Last show in Austin. Just before the show all the youth from the Winedale set up in the foyer of the theatre and performed scenes from As You Like It to a crowd of mums and dads. My back is complaining again, not sure what set it off, likely just healing. But it made me really want to warm up thoroughly, but I didn’t want to miss out on these young Americans speaking our lines with joy.

Thankfully they held the house for a bit and I got to do the rolling around and breathing stuff I like to do to get myself started. Then showtime, baby! Last one in Texas. We celebrated it out.

Post show we have got quite good at packing the case by now. I went to donate the old Shakespeare book Celia has been reading from in some of the scenes. I opened the front cover to dedicate it over to David and his team who have hosted us here, and found written in pen on the inside cover “Alexander Lothian”. That’s two of my names. My father’s grandfather. I’m glad I spotted it. We’ve been carrying his much loved Shakespeare book around the states without me realising. I just figured it was from one of the many clearances but no, it’s kinda like I almost gave away the family Bible, in context of how my life has been working out recently.

I’m thrilled that I’ve been carrying him around though. They say there’s another death the last time someone says your name with love. I never knew him, never even knew his son. But I knew his grandson. And I read Lamia to his grandson badly when he was on his death bed, cos he loved the romantic poets. Poor fucker, Al at that age reading with confidence and no ability. Still it was a moment. We would often share poetry, growing up. Other Men’s Flowers. We would read poems to each other in the morning room at Eyreton. The same room he tricked out with signs saying “ha ha ha” on the back of pictures or things on the mantelpiece so he could join in with and augment the communal laughter without a voice box. My father named me after him. I was never told a single thing about him. But I can extrapolate.

What are we without poetry. Story. Shared experience around the fire. We were made for it, we grew as a species and learned how to interact. Suddenly now the fire is a social media place, not a true coming together. And like green timber, we warp… warp…

Morning class was a great big lecture theatre and we were asked to do the opening scene of The Tempest with something between 100 and 200 students. Jan, one of the professors, had hunted me out a “Texas English” T-shirt in the ubiquitous burnt orange that denotes The Longhorns. They are the college team that dominates this part of town. I wore it.

We threw early morning energy at them, and ended up building a radio play telling of the storm with sound effects and shared voices. “It really takes it off the page doing it like that,” we are told by one student, which is the hope. That’s why we are here after all.

Not here for that much longer sadly. It was colder today. I might have joined the trip to Barton Springs had I not been multiple times in high summer. As is, I just didn’t want to be cold and wet. My Chinese year is the tiger, and there are some very feline aspects to how I look at the world. I don’t like wet and cold, you can bribe me with treats, stroking is nice, I’m just gonna lie here and sleep now, MEAT FISH YUM.

After the show tonight we went to The Broken Spoke. My third time. It’s an institution. Live honky-tonk and everyone is dancing. Cash only to join the dance floor. It hasn’t changed since 1964 but for the fact they take cards at the bar. Sam has to teach early tomorrow so I made a pact to leave when he did and we drove home to get back by midnight. The others might go on for a while, but they will all be getting up to go on an excursion tomorrow. I’ve been to Gruen as well, a few times. I feel relaxed here as I’ve spent enough time in this city to be able to drop any FOMO and just exist.

My hotel room is good but they must have an open day at the university. There are tons of young adults here, snogging in the corridors and shouting through the walls. Every room around me fills up when the bars close and turns into a knocking shop. I haven’t got ear plugs so I’m just hoping to be asleep before it starts tonight. They were all heading somewhere when I got back at midnight so hopefully I’ll be flat out by the time they all get home and start shagging against the wall by my ear, or shouting about their bowel movements or arguing about what to watch on TV or whatever else they decide to do on what might be the first weekend away from home for some of them.

I’m still pinching myself about this job. It is nothing if not an absolute glory.