I contain multitudes. And antibiotics.

Mirror selfie at the Four Seasons

Last week, I was a VIP guest at the St. Andrews Society of Los Angeles for Robert Burns Night at the Four Seasons of Beverly Freakin' Hills. I was rubbing elbows and seated beside luminous Scottish humans (Brian Cox, ffs), dressed in black tie, celebrating art, culture, the Scots language, poetry in general, Robert Burns Poet Laureate of Scotland and of course HAGGIS.—in Beverly Hills amongst very fancy socialites, like a person who definitely owns matching luggage.

This was my second Burns Night of the year. And before you think I’m getting too fancy, this is the part where I tell you that I was wearing the same dress that I donned at the New York Burns Night at the University Club. It has pockets. It was also? rented. 

I was in town because the St. Andrews Society is sponsoring the Pasadena Playhouse’s world premiere of the Brigadoon I have rewritten, and I was tasked with giving a 4 minute speech plugging our lovely show for a room full of Scots. Did I know I was giving a speech? No. Did I write the speech during the salad course on the back of my menu? I did. 

I also was tasked with getting Tyne Daly to and from the event. There is very little Tyne loves more than poetry, and we were looking forward to getting gussied up and having a three course meal in a fancy place (even IF the world is burning down! Especially if the world is burning down!)

My gracious and wonderful host—not busy himself that evening— offered to let me borrow his extremely fancy car to drive to Tyne’s, pick her up and escort her to the Four Seasons, and drive home in style. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

On my way there, I realized I didn’t feel as comfortable driving as I wanted to (living in New York, I only drive occasionally, and when I do I always need a couple of days to acclimate). Do I really want to be driving back at night? Do I really want to be driving TYNE DALY?! No. 

Al + Tyno: thrilling crowds since 2010

New plan: 

1. Drive to Tyne’s. 
2. Park somewhere safe. 
3. Take an $11 taxi to the Four Seasons. 
4. Taxi back to the parking spot. 
5. Drive home. 

After an absolutely splendid evening (my speech went well, thankyouverymuch) I return to the parking spot in West Hollywood. I am in black tie. My phone is at 11%. It is Saturday and pitch black. 

To my horror: I quickly discover that the beautiful borrowed car—a BMW worth the GDP of a modest principality—was GONE. 
Had it been stolen? 
Had it been towed? 
Who was to know. 

I call Alec. He manages to brilliantly figure out the car has indeed been towed, encourages me to get a taxi home with the remaining battery on my phone, and retrieve the car in the morning. 

The next morning I stood not-so-proudly among the detritus of Los Angeles’ most panicked citizens in the fluorescent underbelly of Hollywood Tow Yard, wearing yesterday’s eyeliner and the facial expression of a Victorian orphan. Somewhere nearby a printer screamed continuously, like it too had made terrible choices.

with Brian Cox because of course

I handed a man $280 in cash to retrieve a vehicle whose cup-holders alone were worth more than my first apartment. Juan slid my $1 in change beneath the bulletproof glass—the kind of glass that has absolutely witnessed screams, threats, tears and at least one thrown Monster Energy Drink—and smiled warmly.
 

“Welcome to Los Angeles.”

Thanks, Juan. I hope you never have to grow as a person.
 

 

I returned to my digs and fell asleep instantly, the way you do after your nervous system spends six consecutive hours pretending to be a raccoon in a kitchen (alert, sweaty, and morally compromised) because cortisol is real I guess, and my body had decided we’d run a full Fight-or-Flight marathon about a luxury sedan that, oh, that’s right: did not belong to me.

Two hours later I was at urgent care being diagnosed with a UTI. The doctor said it with the same calm tone one uses to announce light drizzle. I considered asking the Urgent Care Do: can humiliation infect kidneys? If I wrote this into a play the dramaturg would gently suggest we ground the stakes in reality.
 

This is the perfect metaphor for life:


reciting poetry with Tyne Daly → municipal consequences → bladder betrayal.

 

I'm pretty sure I have learned by now that life is mostly just being glamorous for 90 minutes and feral for the remaining 23 hours of the day.

And yet, in that same week, I:

• finished a draft of my brand new play adaptation (news to come) 
• Fully cast the world premiere of Brigadoon (!!)
• work-shopped another project I passionately love
• froze in negative-twenty-degree New York weather so thoroughly my thoughts crystallized

All to say: growth, apparently, does not present as a tidy montage. 
It presents as tonal whiplash. 

Because I am both Four Seasons gal and Sherman Oaks Urgent Care gal. 

I contain multitudes. And antibiotics. 

"For auld lang syne..."

This year, my dear friend Katie Spelman; my artistic soulmate, and my “whyfe”(as we call one another, with deep gratitude to my actual husband for generously lending me to her for this, and many other adventures)  decided to cross an entire ocean to spend New Year’s Eve in Scotland. 

Because of course we did. 

 

We’re doing Brigadoon in Los Angeles in four months, and nothing says “professional preparation” like international travel fueled by a deeply optimistic relationship with our credit cards. It made perfect sense. Why wouldn’t we research and celebrate in one ambitious, impractical, technically financially responsible-ish gesture?

 

So we bought the tickets. We booked the fancy three-course New Year’s Eve banquet and ceilidh at Òran Mór (a magnificent venue in the heart of Glasgow’s West End.) Once a church, now refashioned into a complex of performance spaces, it still has the church’s bones complete with soaring arches and epic acoustics, only now they’re in service of accessible theatre, whisky flights, ceilidh nights, and general joyful chaos. We treated ourselves to the deluxe experience of dinner, dancing, and live music carrying us all the way to 2 a.m., because nothing says “women-circling-40-with-careers” like signing up for communal cardio until dawn...

But what we got was much, much more.

Before the “bells” (at midnight) we were already drenched in sweat from a few hours of the kind of dancing that asks nothing of you except that you show up with a body, a loose grip on dignity, and a willingness to be spun by strangers. 

Ceilidh dancing is deceptively simple, but it is not a solo act. You must take someone’s hand. You must let yourself be pulled off balance and trust that you’ll be returned upright. 

 

Their devotion to togetherness (in general, but in this particular moment: at the turn of the year) runs counter to  the myth of self-sufficiency so many of us carry around like rocks in our pockets. experts say we are living in a loneliness epidemic, where social isolation isn’t just an emotional ache but a public-health concern. In that way, the ceilidh feels like an argument Scotland has been making for centuries, disguised as a party. And what is that argument you may ask? It is the Scots’ insistence on a life lived in community.

We danced with people whose names we immediately forgot and whose laughter we instantly trusted. We ate, we drank, we danced ourselves to the brink of collapse, and somewhere between the second Gay Gordon and the third refill of Prosecco, we learned each other’s stories. By midnight, no one was a stranger anymore. 

As the final moments of the year approached, I was surprised to see that the bar didn’t crowd, it completely closed. (?!!)
Just for fifteen minutes.
But shut down utterly like a bank on a national holiday. 
For the next part was as sacred as it was mundane: 
The entire room, without fuss or instruction, stood up and formed a massive circle. 
No one lingered at the edges. 
No couples peeled off to create private moments. 
No one was left alone at a table scrolling through their phone. 
Stranger with stranger, waitstaff with guest, we all joined hands; arms over-under in criss-crosses. 

Then the bells tolled, and the room began to sing.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,


And never brought to mind?


Should auld acquaintance be forgot,


And auld lang syne!
 

It is the world’s song now, of course. But long before it belonged to us ALL? Burns’ words belonged to them. To Scotland. This is theirs. They sang their words. 

For auld lang syne, my dear,
 

For auld lang syne...

People closed their eyes. Some people shed a few tears. Some made exclamations of joy. Of relief. Of excitement. Wishes were made—and none of it theatrically, but with a kind of sober tenderness. We stood shoulder to shoulder  in that circle at Òran Mór, and sang. 

We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
     

For auld lang syne.

Then confetti as a piper marched across the circle to an eruption of cheers. 
There was no kissing at midnight, no grand speeches, no pledges of life overhaul, no champagne-splashed performative joy. Instead, there was something far more commanding.

There was just presence: bodies close enough to feel warmth, voices raised in unison, limbs entangled in dance with people we had met hours before. By the final chorus, Katie and I were simply two humans—momentarily extra-alive—caught in the tide of other humans doing the same brave thing: showing up for one another at the threshold of time.

This wasn’t just some kind of charming cultural ritual. This was antidote.  
Is it possible that it might be this simple: that which keeps us truly alive, that which actually saves us, is not achievement, wealth, or hyper-independence. It lies within these ordinary moments of mutual existence.

Here, as the year ends, the culture insists: not only are you not alone—you never have been, and shall never be, alone. You will ring life in together, shoulder to shoulder. You will sing the same words at the same time. You will mark the passage of time not as an individual triumph or failure, but as a communal fact.

Good years come. Bad years come. Terrible eras and joyous decades pass through us like weather systems. But according to the Scottish people (and their eternal song) all of it happens in community. There is no other honest way to endure.

Tonight, I felt it.

Dancing arm over arm with a sea of strangers and one soulmate friend. 
In a former church turned music hall. 
In a country that remembers—ritual by ritual—that survival is not a solo sport.

Happy New Year.

“A Vision of Dame Barbara Hepworth Told Me to Dump My Girlfriend” - an AFOOT story

Once again, another AFOOT story. 

As part of the Edinburgh version of Whisper Walk from the "AFOOT" series, I give you one of the monologues/short stories I have composed for this deliciously Scottish incarnation (that we on the creative team refer to a "whispers.") 

From the press release:  

Confessional stories, unuttered truths and personal memories are whispered through headphones in a documentary-style walking tour through Edinburgh. Whisper Walk is partly inspired by the Japanese Kaze no Denwa (“wind phone”) and explores how memories are deeply connected to a seemingly ordinary place. Each audience member, equipped with their smartphone and a pair of headphones, is guided through Edinburgh as voices gently whisper stories and personal memories tied to the locations they pass. As participants become trusted confidants, they are invited to contribute their own place-related memory – whispered into a phone placed at the end of the Whisper Walk – to be archived in the ever-growing Whisper Museum.

Writer Alexandra Silber said, “Whisper Walk is, I think, a really beautiful and unique storytelling theatrical experience, under the notion that places hold memories. It explores the notion that our memories are tied heavily to place, and sort of revels in the idea that a seemingly ordinary, singular, flat park bench, a tree, a series of steps, a street corner, a churchyard, a pub, a very specific cross-section of longitude and latitude, can contain a multitude of stacked memories belonging to countless people—really holding these stories and memories from every human who ever crosses that location. This is very much the way we receive podcasts nowadays, and certainly builds upon the radio drama tradition, but the individual audience member, as a result of this, will end up in a specific geographical place and will hear a story about the place in which they are standing, and thus serves as a confessional, a confidant, a stranger on the road to whom the speaker of the story can speak more candidly than to a regular person in their everyday lives.” 

And so, with that. Enjoy this sneak peak and see you in Edinburgh, this August, afoot! 

 __________________________________________ 

If you ever date a sculptor know this: at some point, they’ll try to sculpt you. Emotionally, I mean. Mine, whose name was Lena had been trying to chisel the sensitivity out of me since March. I thought it was love. It was probably just…scheduling.

We were right here at Doctor’s Pub, and I had made the mistake of having a second Negroni. I remember this because I never order a second Negroni unless I’m trying to impress someone or totally self-destruct.
At some point, I stumbled to the loo—not to be ill, but to be alone without Lena describing “the essence of clay,” and maybe cry a little, the way one sometimes does at the Fringe.

And that’s when I saw her: 
Dame Barbara Hepworth— English sculptor who defined the essence of Modernism and by the way is dead—in the mirror. She wasn’t glowing or floating; malevolent or kind. Just… standing there. Stern. Severe. Iconic headscarf just-so. The kind of woman who looked like she once filed her taxes with a blowtorch.

     “You need to leave her,” the ghost of Barbara Hepworth said, really very composed for someone long-dead. 
I blinked. She raised an eyebrow. Was this low blood sugar? Divine intervention? All I knew is that the ghost of Barbara Hepworth had opinions, and honestly, she wasn’t wrong.
     “But she’s brilliant,” I said, out loud, to no one. “She has a residency in Berlin!”
Barbara Hepworth sighed.      

     “She put a plinth in your kitchen, darling. That’s not a woman, that’s an installation.” 

I returned to the table and stared at Lena, while she returned to describing the sensual nature of rebar. We settled up and left. But in my daze, I’d left my credit card behind and as I turned back— there was Barbara once again, her brilliant, ragged hands banging on the glass from inside the main window, mouthing            “Leave her!!’ 

Then she was gone. Just—poof. Back to the realm of dead British modernists and my own unfortunate subconscious.

 

And I thought: Barbara has a point! I don’t want to be part of someone else’s conceptual vision board— and what will I do for six months in Germany? I’m lactose intolerant. 
 

I broke up with Lena the next day. She said I was mediocre and afraid of commitment.
Which are both true.

But honestly?
Sometimes you just have to listen to the ghost of a modernist sculptor in a pub toilet.
Especially when she’s right.

The prophetic Dame.

“The Curious Case of ‘The Other Iain’ - an AFOOT story

As part of the Edinburgh version of Whisper Walk from the "AFOOT" series, I give you one of the monologues/short stories I have composed for this deliciously Scottish incarnation (that we on the creative team refer to a "whispers.") 

From the press release:  

Confessional stories, unuttered truths and personal memories are whispered through headphones in a documentary-style walking tour through Edinburgh. Whisper Walk is partly inspired by the Japanese Kaze no Denwa (“wind phone”) and explores how memories are deeply connected to a seemingly ordinary place. Each audience member, equipped with their smartphone and a pair of headphones, is guided through Edinburgh as voices gently whisper stories and personal memories tied to the locations they pass. As participants become trusted confidants, they are invited to contribute their own place-related memory – whispered into a phone placed at the end of the Whisper Walk – to be archived in the ever-growing Whisper Museum.

Writer Alexandra Silber said, “Whisper Walk is, I think, a really beautiful and unique storytelling theatrical experience, under the notion that places hold memories. It explores the notion that our memories are tied heavily to place, and sort of revels in the idea that a seemingly ordinary, singular, flat park bench, a tree, a series of steps, a street corner, a churchyard, a pub, a very specific cross-section of longitude and latitude, can contain a multitude of stacked memories belonging to countless people—really holding these stories and memories from every human who ever crosses that location. This is very much the way we receive podcasts nowadays, and certainly builds upon the radio drama tradition, but the individual audience member, as a result of this, will end up in a specific geographical place and will hear a story about the place in which they are standing, and thus serves as a confessional, a confidant, a stranger on the road to whom the speaker of the story can speak more candidly than to a regular person in their everyday lives.” 

And so, with that. Enjoy this sneak peak and see you in Edinburgh, this August, afoot! 

 *


Set: Cowgate under George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

I am Iain Angus Campbell— the first one, or at least, the one telling this story—and I am  standing under George IV Bridge with a large cardboard box labeled “FOR THE OTHER IAIN” and the vague feeling that I have slipped through a tear in the fabric of space-time.

Inside the box I am holding is:
    •    Three veterinary textbooks written in German (I do not read German)
    •    A framed photo of a ginger man on a yacht  (I have never been on a yacht, only vomited near one)
    •    And a very personal letter from someone named Dimitri, written entirely in Cyrillic, which I am almost certain is an erotic poem. (Because, yes, I have had it translated.)

 It’s hard to explain: every time one receives a piece of correspondence with their name on it, one naturally assumes the correspondence is for them. But every time I open mail to The Other Iain, I am, at first, shocked. Then horrified. Then oddly aroused by the illicit nature of opening other people’s mail. I consider myself a relatively ethical person, and I’m not proud to have rifled through Iain Angus Campbell’s private things, read his mail, and texted back his exes. But what am I to do? For you see: THEY ARE ALL ADDRESSED TO “ME.”  

It began with a misdirected email from a veterinary clinic in Dundee, followed by a call from HMRC regarding unpaid taxes on my “falconry side hustle,” and climaxed with an offer to speak at a conference in Amsterdam on “large animal anesthesia”—a subject I know exactly nothing about because I mostly treat cats.

That was two years ago. 


 Iain Angus Campbell— the other one— is real. Or at least I’m real, and the universe has committed to a bit that is now years long and disturbingly elaborate. He has the same name. Is the same age. He is also a veterinarian. Also left-handed (?!) and green-eyed, and redheaded. The algorithms are confused. The tax office is furious. The dating apps are saturated with accusations.
We are, by all accounts, statistically indistinguishable. 

And? We have never met.
Not in the flesh. Not once.
Until—apparently—today.

I got a text:

        “Iain. It’s Iain. Let’s exchange boxes. Cowgate. Under the bridge. Three.”

Which, yes, sounds murder-y. (Or like a compelling romance!) 

But anyway here I am. Under the bridge. With my box. Wearing my jacket. Holding my nerves together with the fragile glue of one too many espressos. And spiraling.
Because if this man is me—not just like me—then what am I, exactly? 
Some early prototype? 
The version of Iain who never had the courage to move to the Netherlands or take up falconry or respond to Dimitri’s love note? 
What if I meet him and I’m just the “Beta Iain?”
Or worse— oh, God: what if he doesn’t show up?

I check my phone. 

3:12.

 Iain is late.

Or maybe early. 

Or maybe me. 

I don’t fucking know.
And I think, not for the first time:
If this isn’t the matrix, then maybe it’s something worse.

Maybe it’s a love story.
But only one of us gets to tell it.

"Take My Hand and Let's Go Roaming..." — A New Adaptation of Brigadoon

Friends, I humbly share with you all: I made a thing. 

Well. I RE-made a thing. 

And what an honor it is. 

 

Inspired by the giants of Alan J Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and with the support and encouragement of their families and estates, a new Brigadoon is coming in to the world, and it is making its world premiere in my birthplace, Los Angeles, at the Tony-Award winning Pasadena Playhouse helmed by the man who was there for my first American job Artistic Director Danny Feldman.

I love Scotland. I love the theatre. I love music. And I love telling deep human stories.

Many of you who have been readers since the beginning know that when I was 18, a few months after my father died, in a swirl of grief and of an unnameable sense of hope, I picked up my entire life and moved to Scotland. 

I stayed for years (held and nurtured by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and slowly, a part of me healed and grew to be ready to hope again, love again, and join the the world again.

Scotland and its people held me, uplifted me, with its music, language, and poetry; its stark beauty, its searingly unsentimental insistence upon human resilience. The country and its culture continue to be an active part of my life to this day.

How fortunate am I that the art form I love more than anything in the world can provide a vessel for a story I couldn't keep to myself a moment longer. This is both an old Brigadoon— one you'll remember, recall and joyfully celebrate legacy; as well as utterly new— a deepening and enrichment made just for a new generation of theater-goers to appreciate anew.

I've never been prouder of any creative offering I've participated in, in all my life. I've also never been more honored to bow deeply at the altar of Lerner and Loewe-giants of our art form and say:

— "take my hand and let's go roaming..."

See you next season at Pasadena Playhouse. 

 

Kidspoem/Bairnsangs By Liz Lochhead

it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu'ed oan ma pixie an' my pawkies
it wis that bitter
said noo ye'll no starve
gie'd me a wee kiss and a kid-oan skelp oan the bum
and sent me aff across the playground
tae the place Ah'd learn to say

it was January
and a really dismal day
the first day I went to school
so my mother wrapped me up in my
best navy-blue top coat with the red tartan hood,
twirled a scarf around my neck,
pulled on my bobble-hat and mittens
it was so bitterly cold
said now you won't freeze to death
gave me a little kiss and a pretend slap on the bottom
to the place I'd learn to forget to say

it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood,
birled a scarf aroon ma neck,
pu'ed oan ma pixie an' ma pawkies
it wis that bitter.

Oh saying it was one thing
but when it came to writing it
in black and white
the way it had to be said
was as if you were posh, grown-up, male, English and dead. 

Robert Burns Night

On 25 January every year, Scots and Scots-at-heart come together to celebrate the life and works of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns.

The first Burns night was celebrated in 1801, when a group of Burns' friends came together at his childhood home to celebrate the life of their friend. In the more than 200 years since then, this tradition continues to grow as the influence of Burns' work has spread across the globe.

Today, people in countries all round the world who have been captivated by his haunting verses come together on his birthday, 25 January, to celebrate his life and works. Traditional Scottish food and drink is blended with some of Burns' best-known poems to create a truly memorable experience for everyone involved.

The end of the party: JOY.

Born in Ayrshire in 1759, Robert Burns is Scotland's national bard. Affectionately known as 'the Ploughman Poet', his verses stand as a fitting testament to Scotland's proud literary history. Here's a selection of his greatest works:

A Man's a Man for A' That
Ae fond kiss
Auld Lang Syne
To a Mouse
A Red, Red Rose

And, Robert Burns Night was the very first party of the "one party a month" plan for my 2018 goal. 

Josh playing.

What a way to begin the year! Good food, good whisky, good music, good cheer and good poetry; there's no experience quite like a Burns Night celebration. Whether you're addressing the haggis or the 'lassies', or you dont know your kilts from your ceilidhs, that is a-ok, because all are welcome at Chez AlSilbs.
 

The centrepiece of any good Burns Supper menu is the iconic haggis, or as the bard himself described it, the 'great chieftain o' the puddin'-race'.  And of course, whisky is the usual choice at Burns Suppers, either malts or blends. Contrary to popular belief, adding a little water to your malt may improve rather than dilute the flavour, although some whisky drinkers may not take kindly to watering down their drams! 
 

But the best (and certainly my favorite) part of Burns Night is the traditional poetry recitals. These include Burns classics (above) especially the 'Address to a Haggis' (recited by my dearst Tzeitl WHO FLEW OVER ESPECIALLY FROM SCOTLAND, Frances Thorburn). Other recitals on the evening include contemporary Scots poetry, and of course, traditional music (which filled my home thanks to all the signers, and friends playing the accordion, oboe and cello!)

all the signs of a good party

from 'In the Shadows,' Sonnet 1 by David Gray

If it must be if it must be O God!
     That I die young and make no further moans 
That underneath the unrespective sod 
     In unescutcheoned privacy my bones 
Shall crumble soon then give me strength to bear 
     The last convulsive throe of too sweet breath!
tremble from the edge of life to dare 
     The dark and fatal leap having no faith 
No glorious yearning for the Apocalypse 
     But like a child that in the night time cries 
For light I cry forgetting the eclipse 
     Of knowledge and our human destinies 
O peevish and uncertain soul! obey 
The law of life in patience till the Day.

© hula seventy

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

In hono(u)r of Robert Burns Night held annually in Scotland on January 25th, my favo(u)rite of his, in both poetic and sung form. 

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

   That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

   That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

   So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

   Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

   While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

   And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

In My Life: Glasgow

Glasgow, Scotland
©2015