The Beautiful People

This is what I've been doing for the last few weeks - it's a depression era American play by William Saroyan. The things about this play that take me by surprise are the lack of cynicism and conflict. When I was at Guildhall a rather odd woman came and taught us a course on playwriting. The course was designed to help us to understand and respect the process a playwright goes through. The first thing she made us do was write an argument. The rest of the course revolved around making that argument the centre of a piece of theatre. So she began with conflict and prioritised it. Which is rife in playwriting these days. I have heard people dismiss plays out of hand because they have no conflict. Surely this is foolish? The best reason to dismiss a play out of hand is because it is crap. I suppose there is conflict in this play, in the sense of conflicting objectives and worldviews. What is not present is violence, malice, smallmindedness, ill-will - things that I come across in plays all the time and that are at the heart of most of the plays I have seen recently. I think perhaps people are mistaking conflict for violence, and who can blame them with the preponderance of violent writing and entertainment in our culture - reality shows which focus on screaming and shouting, which are informed by soaps of the same ilk. People watch the soaps, absorb them, and then when their lives are being recorded they alter their behaviour to reflect what they consider to be normal. The theatre is an entertainment medium, but it should not be trying to fill the same slot as television. It's a night out and a night out should be rewarding and fulfilling, rather than just reaffirming a sense of bleakness. And now we appear to be about to enter another worldwide depression. It's time to start trying to cheer people up without being schmaltzy and artifical - an optimistic message, well delivered is all that is needed. Dammit!

William Saroyan is not very well known in this country. He won a Pulitzer for "The Time of Your Life", which is the only play of his that is regularly performed in the UK. This is because it has a cast of 24 and won a Pulitzer - perfect for Drama School shows and thus in the mental furniture of lots of theatre professionals over here. He dashed out The Beautiful People for a bunch of friends of his over a period of 2 weeks, and you get the sense that he workshopped it with his actors and added and took away throughout the rehearsal period. His stage directions are almost Shavian in their specificity, and we found ourselves picking and choosing which ones were useful and which ones were artistic fascism. Our company is brilliant, and have humbled Mel (the director) and I with their commitment and positivity. It's so hard that they cannot be paid - the only way we're even going to be able to give them something towards their travel expenses is if we pack the houses every night for the rest of the run. We nominally had a producer who came to the first meeting and promised the earth, but then had a series of disasters so constant and so relentless and badly timed that it was almost as if she was making them up because she was too lazy to do anything. Floods, illnesses, deaths in the family, more illnesses, domestic disasters... One time she phoned me up with her sick voice and I found myself thinking that no matter how sick I am I never phone with my sick voice. It's hard to tell if she is honest or not, but I will never work with her again for sure. In 3 weeks she never met the designer, watched a rehearsal, or, I suspect, read the play. On the day of the first performance her name was taken out of the programme. She rang me in the morning and told me she had managed to secure an anonymous donation of £50. Thank god for that, I thought, and put her name back in. I won't name her in this blog unless she finds some reason why that £50 cannot be paid. I think I can guess who the donor is... And here am I being cynical. Dear me.

So what am I doing in this play? Assistant Directing. I'm not in it. I always say that I like directors that know what it means to be an actor even if they are shit at it. I wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the table and it has been very insightful. I will be a lot less worried in auditions now - we had to turn down so many lovely and talented people and it was very rare indeed for us to dismiss someone because they were crap or insane. And it's good to have confirmation that actors that offer things in rehearsal are loved - having to tell someone not to do something is so much better than having to find a way to get an actor to ... just ... do .... something!

But these actors do. And it is joyful. So come if you read this before the run ends - come and pay for the travelcards of these wonderful talented actors who have given pots of their time to do something out of love. Cheer yourself up, it's only an hour and a bit, so you'll be out by nine. On Sunday evenings the pub downstairs is open after the show. Here's a link to the What's on Stage review, which was good and gave 4 stars: http://www.whatsonstage.com/blogs/offwestend/?p=550

It runs Sunday and Mondays only for the next 2 weeks. 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th October at 7.30pm at the Finborough. Latecomers can't be admitted. http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/ is the website and you can book there. Hurrah!

Speaking Freely

"Got it. Beautiful day."

spoken through SpinVox

Reflections in London

Twelfth Night in Ripley was a wonderfully refreshing job to do.

A great company of good people, and a lovely show that was well received. And in a glorious place. Being back in London is strange and unfamiliar, and has left me feeling more vulnerable than usual. I went to Planet Angel on friday for a night of clubbing and relaxing, had a great night and danced like a fool, and then came back to my flat with a few lovely people. I then decided to show them the pilot that Tim had just finished editing. Now this came up as the result of a chat in a bar about 2 years ago, and Tim and I ran with it and started to work with it. After about 6 months I began to worry that what I was making was not what I wanted to be making, in that the values celebrated in it and the intentions behind it were corrupting. It was becoming a venomous attack not only on ourselves but also on the career that we have chosen. And since I love my career, and most of the people I have worked with, I lost interest in the project. But Tim took the baton and carried on, with spectacular energy, and kicked us all into shape until he had enough footage to cut together a loose pilot. And for what he was trying to make, he did a great job. Now it is going to get sent out to people and seen by them, and I am a little worried. I have been happily rumbling along as a jobbing actor for a good few years now, and this pilot could contain the seeds of destruction for that career. I get my work by being good, and good to work with. This pilot makes me look like a vast uncontrollable talentless ego. The mistake I made was in choosing to personify all the aspects of myself that I hate. The character is too close to me, and not sharply enough characterised to be distinguishable. And it's not particulary funny. Now this could be a manifestation of my insecurity. After all I am putting out something that shows all that I consider to be wrong with me and my acting. And insecurity is nothing more than ego turned in upon itself anyhow. After all, we have to think we're important in order to think that people hate us. But one man said "this is going to make people hate you." And perhaps I'm too wrapped up with wanting to be loved? So many people in this profession have insecurities about themselves. Maybe this is why we want to put ourselves into other people's circumstances. All I know is that showing a pilot with a character based on the worst of me to just a couple of people makes me vanish into insecurity. Especially if I consider much of my work in it to be suspect. So how will I feel when this is sent round to all the people I might want to get auditions from?

Two weeks out of work and I am already in the hole. And that's all this is. I need money and a little pretence at job security and I'll be posting things to you telling you how fucking amazing I am.

Nathan has just requested that I write horrible things about him. Nothing springs to mind so I will instead tell you that he just made me look at his ass, while individually clenching each cheek, and announcing "See - getting tighter already." And that's true.

Don't wanna come back

I have less than a week up in Ripley left. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I wouldn't be surprised if a little bluebird fluttered in through the window and landed on my shoulder. I have eaten good food in good company. I am doing a great show with a gorgeous bunch of people. I am wondering what the hell I thought I was doing living in London.

Kidnap Victim

It months ago that it happened but it feels like yesterday. The wounds are still fresh. I wonder if I will ever be free of the lingering sense of fear. The terror that it could so easily happen again.

I was in my flat. It was a sunny day - not summer sun, but spring sun. The sun of hope. I was on the internet when it happened. Checking my bank balance. Looking for work. Wondering how I was going to squeeze out what little money I had left until I got another acting job. My mobile phone rang.

"Hello." (pause) "Is that Mr. Barclay?"

-- A withheld number. The speaker mumbling deliberately so as to be unrecognisable. Vaguely accented. Who is this man?? --

"Um... Yes..."

"Are you the owner of vehicle registration number..."

-- Oh my God. My car. Where is it. It is on the street outside my flat. I parked it there last night. How does he know the number? How does he know my phone number?? --

"Yes... Where is it? It's outside my house."

-- A hint of smugness creeps in. He knows something I don't know --

"It is in Lots Road Car pound..."

The man turned out to be a kidnapper. Someone had put a yellow sign on a lamppost near my car, and although no skip or van or anything needed to use the bay in which it was parked for the entirety of the day, rather than move the car to any of the many vacant bays that were surrounding it, it had been stolen and hidden in a little car park near the train tracks on Lots Road. Okay I was a fool to have not checked the lamp-post. It was late and I was tired. I was willing to pay a fool tax - surely it couldn't be more than £80 pounds, I thought. Which is fine since I have £300 left of my overdraft limit.

"What's the ransom?"

"If you collect it today, it will be £260."

I almost fell over. Dear lord that is totally absurd. It is two fines for the same offence. £80 for a "serious parking offence" and £180 for recovering it from the pound. This, in my opinion, is disgusting. One or the other would be reasonable as an idiocy tax. Both not only totally destroyed my financial stability such as it can ever be in this profession, but has also left me deeply traumatised. I wake EVERY MORNING with a vague fear that I may have inadvertently left my car somewhere where they can ransom it. My first act is to check out the window, and if I can't see my car I run down the stairs with my heart in my mouth and some hastily thrown on clothes to check that it isn't about to be stolen. If a garbage van pulls up outside the flat at 7.15 I think it is the sound of the poundeteers getting in some early thefts. I have to check, recheck and check again all the lamp posts near the car. I don't dare leave town for more than a day in case they come in over night and stick up their yellow signs and run off with my car. Because if they steal it again I can't afford to get it back. And then they'll start removing wheels and windscreen wipers and sending them to me in the post. If they steal it again I will have to disown the car and all it's contents, as I would not make back the money that I have to spend on rescuing it by selling it. I am genuinely traumatised by the vast and crippling fine levied for the simple offense of leaving my car overnight near a yellow sign that had been speculatively put up in order to make room for work which never took place.

I know the arguments. Why do you need to have a car in London?

True.

I'm just angry because I'm broke.

Summer-stock

Well then the old joke is true as usual. Book a holiday if you want to get some work. I was meant to be going to Tuscany for a lovely week in the sunshine, all flights booked, accommodation thankfully not finalized and a big cool fun wedding with all the trimmings to head to in the middle of the break. And then I was going to go to Glastonbury festival and see Leonard Cohen play live, and it was going to be sunny and amazing.

Now I am instead paying for all my non-refundable tickets and biting the bullet and heading up to Ripley to do a Shakespeare in the grounds of Ripley Castle. Which Shakespeare? Twelfth Night. But hang on - deja-vu... Haven't you already played Malvolio in an outdoor Shakespeare over the summer? Yes but I don't care it's work, and money and sun and frolics and I want to see if I am capable of finding it fresh with a new company in a new setting. The director seems great which will make a change from last time, and from what I know of the company there are no idiots, lunatics or clowns. So something to look forward to. I must book holidays more often. Usually I don't in case I lose the money by getting a job - but then perhaps I'd sooner get the jobs. Oh god that reminds me I am supposed to be playing Lord Astor at Hever Castle on the weekend before we open. And the costume is booked. Meeh how can they book actors so far in advance - is that pessimism or optimism? Right enough blogging time to look for a replacement. How about YOU?

Temple

Having just got back from the Isle of Man, where my brother and I had spend a hideously busy 3 days carrying things and doing DIY and driving big vans round in circles, I went to Linklaters in The City to do a performance of Asylum Monologues to a room full of lawyers on their lunch break. One of my partners in crime were an iraqi kurdish man called Narwaz who had been brought into the mix by Emma Laird-Craig, one of the actresses who did The Performance Lab's piece at The Globe in December with me. He did some extraordinary singing between the sections read by me, Emma and the lovely Christine Bacon, who set up the network in the UK and in Australia. It was, as always, very rewarding. The piece is essentially outreach work, putting genuine testimonies about the asylum system into a loosely dramatic form and presenting it in the least patronising way possible, with minimu acting.

Emma is involved in The Actor's Temple, which was set up in part by Ellie Zeegen who is also in The Lab with me. I have already written about their production of The Three Sisters which I saw in a country house in Scotland. Ellie has been trying to persuade me to get down to The Temple for some time now, and she had already told me that Friday would be a good day to come. And Emma was going too so it seemed too good to pass up. Problem is, I really hadn't been blown away by the work in The Three Sisters. I get a little pissed off watching actors trying to achieve a state in themselves regardless of the needs of the text. We've all been guilty of it at some point, but there was a good deal of it present there and I was pretty much ready to write of the whole Meisner thing as another "acting as therapy" trap. I got bored and felt disconnected from the work as I felt like I was being told how to feel, and that the actors were working too hard making themselves feel something that was no use. As a Marcellus the fight director says repeatedly to the extent that you want to dispense with all the knaps and twat him one; "excited is not the same as exciting". But it's a good point. We are craftsmen... God I am beginning to sound like Jake. But I was willing to believe I had just come on a bad night or been in a bad mood. So hi-ho and off we go to The Temple again for a second dose.

The work was presided over by "this amazing teacher" called Marty. Oh fuck. Another amazing teacher. In other words someone who has terrible ego problems and alleviates his own self-hate by destroying the lives of others in the name of learning. Not so. Thank God. This guy is a rather camp and very bright American who seems to be an enabler, not a crusher. Good start. He reminded me in some ways of Peter Clough, who directed me at Guildhall in Twelfth Night and who makes you understand firmly that everything comes from you, but knows how to make you bring out aspects of yourself, almost unknowingly, that you were burying or repressing. So to the work. I had to watch it on a screen in the room next door, as it was packed out. Nonetheless the intensity came through on the screen. The first scene was crippled by nerves and did nothing to wake me up pretty much because of that. After that it was scene after scene of gripping stuff, not overdone, human, true and deeply moving - in many different ways. I loved it, and I was surprised how much. So now I'm going to do this introductory week that I won in the Christmas party for The Performance Lab. We're always learning and I know I have got so much better at all the aspects of this bizarre and wonderful job - even the letter writing, which I used to be excruciatingly awful at. So I'm not going to approach this as anything other than as a place to kick back and do the things that I went into the profession for.

So I stayed at the party afterwards and spoke to all the people, and found them all very interesting and diverse. And passionate. I had some very honest chats with people. Like with The Lab, I love to spend time in the presence of passionate people. It wakes up my passion, and that has been dormant for a very very long time. So all said a really good day, and now I feel a strange mixture of excitement and trepidation about stepping into something true and potentially life-changing.

Iona

Good to have talented friends! This is iona who i'm with in a pretty overpriced bar in battersea. She's doing a set and she really is good. As long as the music industry lets her in she'll sell millions to disaffected teenage girls and students finishing their education. And other people too. Ordinary people. People like you. People like me. People with noses. And legs.

Just lovely

It seems i have done nothing for the last two weeks but rehearse and sleep, so how bloody gorgeous to travel from one rehearsal to another and realise that spring has - for the moment at least - sprung. What am i rehearsing? The empire builders. 7.45 from 13th to 15th march at the pleasance theatre in caledonian road. Plug over. Back to the joys of spring.

Friends

Clearly when i am working i can't be bothered to blog. And yet here are the chaps i'm out with and how the hell did they manage to dress identically... X

Feed Gorn

I took the feed from Facebook off, as I found it hard to blog about anything knowing that, like so many of us, the word "friend" means something different on facebook. Like "person I once spilled a drink on", or "person I never spoke to at school" or "enemy". Now you have to dig deep to find me. Not that you'd want to.

Also I really didn't see the point of everyone getting notified everytime I experimented with that Spinvox voice to text thing.

4 days into the yoga experiment. Already my body feels infinitely better - I am feeling quite evangelistic about yoga right now - take the time and do it. It's one and a half hours of concentrated agony, in return for the rest of the day of feeling great. Better than the slow drip of discomfort that lasts all day and all night.

Yoga Whore

As the year drew to a close, I got an email from my agent telling me that she was having a three week holiday after christmas. I had just finished the christmas job at The Globe with a wonderful and radiant group of people from The Performance Laboratory - our theatre company - and I was feeling optimistic, as well as just having been paid for acting. So I wasn't too concerned that my agent was going away as I usually seem to manage to find money for myself one way or another. Sadly this year it was not to be. The weeks marched in and the pennies got pinched tighter and tighter until I find myself making sure I don't go out at all, and cooking frugally, and cancelling all money-draining luxuries in order to keep going. One of the luxuries that had to go was the gym. Which is a shame, as the best time to have a gym membership is when the chips are down. You have somewhere to go and make yourself feel better.

Then last Friday I decided to go to the theatre to see Rosie Armstrong - the daughter of a friend of mine - in I am a Superhero. This was at the Theatre 503 and a good theatre director friend of mine who works there offered me a free ticket if I helped out with front of house. This was too good to turn down. Depressed and broke though, I was in need of a haircut and not really taking a great deal of pride in my appearance. So I arrived at the theatre and went into the auditorium to gather up empty glasses. The actors were warming up on stage and I overheard one of them say to Rosie as I was walking out - "Is that your friend? He's minging."

I probably misheard her. But nonetheless I had a good long hard look at myself and realised that, yes - it cannot be denied. I ming. I minged my way through the play, standing at the back of the auditorium and hoping that the minging wasn't putting Rosie off. Then I minged off as quickly as I could after the show in order to quietly ming alone in the comfort of my flat. But the rational side of me thought that maybe I was only having one of my not infrequent bouts of paranoia. So how to beat paranoia, which is the luxury of the man who doesn't have more important things to think about? You only start looking inward when you forget to look out. So step one, despite having no work, is to get back out into the world.

A routine. That's a start. Out of work, so I need to pretend I'm in work. Up by 7. Work 9 - 5. 1 hours lunch - (which is now). Exercise every evening. Thing is because I think I ming I don't want to go running because I see people who ming running all the time and I don't want to join the ming club. Yoga!!

Right. So I want to do yoga, but I haven't any money. This is not a problem. I do a bit of internet searching and come upon the site for Bikram Yoga Fulham. They do 10 consecutive days for 10 quid. Bargain! So after a weekend of ming I get myself down to the centre in Heathman's Road and boldly lay out a mat right in front of the fucking great big mirror, so I can see myself clearly as I do the stretchy thing. And yes that annoying little voice in my head screams at me how much I ming throughout the class. But by the end of it it is less bothersome. Perhaps because I made the mistake of sitting a long way from the door so all of my energy is going into attempting to survive the sweltering furnace-like heat and the bizarre and unfamiliar bodily contortions. And since I never look in the mirror at home it is useful to notice that yep - I need a haircut.

The class ends and I float into the changing room surprised at how light my minging body feels. I get into the shower and slam it on as cold as I can bear. And an amazing thing begins to happen. I begin to shed my skin, like a snake. I rub and scrub under the blissful cold water and my old tacky and polluted ming-skin rolls off. Underneath is shiny new skin. Skin that doesn't ming quite so much. And when I get home I want to walk around in bare feet and have my top off. The possibility that I might not ming runs through my mind.

Day 2, and I spend the day looking forward to going back for another hour and a half of hell. How perverse. I get to the studio and sit closer to the door. And this time it is somehow easier. I find myself already able to not fall over in some of the poses where the day before it seemed impossible for me to do anything but. Perhaps my new less-minging skin is helping my balance? My blood pulses round my body, and I get home and go to bed early. EARLY?? I have been an insomniac for over a month - committedly so. And I still have all of the things in my life that need fixing but now it seems like they can be fixed rather than that they are insurmountable and weigh me down. Day 3 hasn't happened yet but I'm feeling a little more stiff so thinking I want to go in order to get the weight off again.

The problem is, what do I do after the ten days are up? After ten days I will have advanced from total minger to "in some lights he only mings a bit". In order to fly to the dizzying heights of "for a moment I thought he didn't ming" I will need more than 10 days...

More internet later, and the wonders of Jivamukti yoga are laid out before me. Another 10 days for 10 quid. Then there's another practise that does the same deal with Bikram but is run by different people. And surely there are more? How long can I keep doing yoga for a quid a day? I'll be a god. Eventually the free courses will run out, unless I move to New York and then to LA. But by then the ming will have fallen away, and that'll mean that someone will have given me a job. And by then I ought to know which style of yoga likes I like best so I can start paying the pretty damn pricy fees or practising at home - although you can't do bikram at home.

So thank-you to the girl who said I ming, even if you didn't. I enjoyed "I am a superhero" - all the performances were spot on and it was controlled and well directed. Although maybe the writing wasn't up my street... My lunch hour's over so I am going to get back to work.

Speaking Freely

"Watley insists that SpinVox, SpinVox learn how to spell things. I think that's bullshit. Sometimes it says uncle Barclay. Sometimes it says uncle Barclay. I would normally say it, my name is Alex Barclay, or Alex Barclay. I wonder if it spelled the 2 differently. Either way my name is Alex Barclay, wonder how it spells that, but anyway, bye."

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"I switched off the mini feed from my Blog to Facebook. Which means that hopefully now, I'm gonna be able to experiment with this, without everybody on my Facebook profile getting constant updates about, the facts that I'd spoken freely with SpinVox about something completely meaningless and it's been posted automatically to my Facebook, holler."

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"To be or not to be that is the question. Whether it is noble in the mind? To suffer the slangs(?) and arrows about wages fortune or to take arms against the sea of trouble and by opposing end them. To die to sleep."

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"Yes, it gives you about 45 seconds, I imagine there's a sec somewhere where I can turn that up. This is rather exciting now I have a new and interesting way to bore the living hell out of anybody stupid enough to read this blog. Goodbye."

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"So Abegail. Totally fucking useless. Apparently if I speak like a key news reader then it will be converted successfully and well but the problem with this of course is that it completely defeats the object because if you're on the move, you want to be phoning up your blog and being very very vague and specific in casual because it feels like a casual service, it does"

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"So it just works a vaguely comprehensible rendition of what I just said will be posted to my blog. Parts of this deceit me slightly because I should probably post anything that I consider important or interesting or maybe if I felt like it which I never really do anyway. But now I can bull the shit of you by phoning you up when I'm on the train and say I'm on the train and I'm really bored. But I only get 40 secs and so you'll be glad to know I'll be cut off in a moment and then"

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

"Of course I haven't worked out if this is being converted to my actual blog yet. I think I gave it the address but I'm not certain. If it is then God what a fucking dull update but the other thing is it only gives you a minute to speak. Now SpinVox says it's very kinda if they hungry with space and downloads. Do you have to extend your voicemail box as soon as he gets this needs a fault setting, it's very very very low. So I suspect there's a way to make it possible to"

spoken through SpinVox