Perthshire-born actor Alan Cumming is back in his native Scotland this summer with a new stage production that sees him take on one of the most physically-demanding roles of his career.
Burn is a solo dance theatre production inspired by the life of Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns, and Alan’s aim is to present a lesser-known side of the poet – as well as a lesser-known side of himself.
Edinburgh, Perth, New York…
Created with the National Theatre of Scotland, Burn officially opened at the Edinburgh International Festival last week, running at the capital’s King’s Theatre.
It’s now heading on a tour of Scotland – which takes in two dates at Perth Theatre next week – before travelling to New York.
The 57-year-old actor, who has appeared in films such as X-Men 2 and Emma and television show The Good Wife, is also due to participate in Perthshire Pride festival in Perth today, Saturday August 13.
He is set to give an opening speech and lead the march, which begins in the South Inch car park at 11am.
‘I’m happy to support it’
Alan says: “I’m really looking forward to it. I think it’s great, I’ve been in touch with the Perthshire Pride people for a few years and it’s just all worked out that I could do it this year.
“It’s something I feel strongly about and am happy to be able to support. It’s a really burgeoning organisation and it’s great that people can get out there, celebrate and also let more people know about what’s happening in the LGBT community.”
And if his new theatre tour wasn’t enough to be getting on with, Alan is also preparing to film another series of Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland.
Alan and Miriam coming back
The Channel 4 show aired at the end of last year and saw Alan and actress Miriam Margolyes returning to their Scottish roots as they travelled around the country in a campervan visiting places that have shaped their identities.
Alan reveals: “I’m going to be doing another series soon. We’re doing two episodes in Scotland — I do those towards the end of Burn — and after there’s a gap of a week before we go to New York. Then we’re doing two episodes in California.”
‘It was a hoot to make’
As Alan and Miriam (81) drove, chatted and jested, there were some hilarious results.
“It really was a hoot to make and, as you saw on screen, we got on well in an ‘Odd Couple’ sort of way,” Alan goes on.
But there were some poignant moments, too, one in particular when Alan returned to Panmure Estate near Carnoustie where he lived from the age of four until 17, when he moved to Glasgow to study drama.
Alan’s late father was head forester there and the actor has spoken and written about the trauma and abuse he and his brother suffered at their father’s hands while growing up.
Even though Alan had permission to enter the house where he had lived, he decided only to look at it from the outside and chat with Miriam about the memories that came flooding back.
He says he still has not set foot through the door: “It was only last year and I haven’t gone back since then. As I said on the show, it was difficult.”
A home in Scotland
One thing that was clear over the course of the series was Alan’s passion for Scotland. At the moment, he lives with his husband – the illustrator and graphic designer Grant Shaffer – in New York.
He says he would love to spend more time here in the future: “I do have a home in Scotland and I have for a long time — I used to have a place in London but about 15 years ago I moved back to Scotland.
“I spend most of my time in America but I definitely am spending more time here over the last few years and, yes, I want to split my time more evenly.”
One more ‘physical show’
Alan says his current production, Burn, was born out of a growing interest in the real life of Robert Burns, as well as a wish to do one more “physical show”.
Although he has appeared in musical theatre productions throughout his career, this is Alan’s first time doing a solo dance performance.
He explains: “I felt that I maybe would have one more very physical show in me after I finished doing Cabaret on Broadway about five years ago.
“I realised I would never be this fit again and never be asked to do dancing like that again.
“So I just put that out in the universe and this happened. It really wasn’t what I intended but, most of these things I do that are really big challenges are kind of happy accidents.”
A side of Burns you never saw
Describing the production, he says: “It’s a show about Robert Burns. I play him and it’s a series of scenes from his life with a mix of dance theatre. I speak quite a lot, there’s video as well. It’s a multimedia impression of Burns, showing you a side you might not have known before.”
Alan developed the performance with Olivier award-winning British choreographer Steven Hoggett, having worked with him in 2008 on previous National Theatre of Scotland production The Bacchae.
Hoggett has worked on productions such as Black Watch and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
After its run in Scotland, Burn moves across to The Joyce Theater in New York City for a series of performances at the end of September.
The production was created in partnership with Joyce Theater, which has an international reputation for cultivating and supporting dance artists.
Alan goes on: “I have said a lot that if I had any regrets, it would be that I wasn’t a dancer.
‘I don’t really have regrets’
“But I don’t really have regrets because I think if you are happy with who you are now then you can’t really regret anything because it would be like a game of Jenga – that you were taking this piece out and everything might fall apart.
“I do admire dancers greatly and I love the idea that they use their bodies to tell a story. In this, I’m not just using my body, but there are chunks where I am just dancing and that, to me, is a very exciting thing.”
A one-man show
He adds: “We started with previews in Greenock and it was quite exciting to get it on stage. It was great to have a theatre to ourselves for the week.
“It’s a one-man show and there are many components to it: the video, music and lighting. Normally if you do open at a festival it’s just one day and you get on.
“Because it is such a technical show this was great — and it’s also lovely to go to places that are sometimes missed on the big tour.”
While doing research for the production, Alan and Steven spoke to academics from the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Robert Burns Studies to discover more about the poet’s true character.
Alan says: “There are people in history that I begin to wonder if we know the whole story about them. I felt that more and more with Burns – when we have one very strong perception of someone.”
He goes on: “When we talked with two great academics at Glasgow University, they pointed us towards Burns’s letters.
Learning from Burns’s letters
“I think we are pretty familiar with his poems – although there are lots that aren’t as well-known as others – but we are not familiar with his letters.
“What was really striking to me when I started to read them was that, immediately, his voice is different to the voice that we hear because he does not write in Scots. He made a choice to do his poems in the Scots language, that was a choice even then.
“It sounds like a different person when you read his letters. That was really helpful. It helped me to divorce him from his work.”
Would Burns be bipolar?
Alan goes on to say that research by academics at the university has led to the belief that Burns, who was born in 1759, would nowadays be classified as bipolar. This would explain his deep depressions and bouts of mania.
Alan found it fascinating to discover there was a whole area to Burns’s health and mental health that he knew nothing about.
He explains: “You can see that in his work, the hyper-mania phases in his output, as well as his libido. He was a very fragile man. We think of him as this strapping ploughman, but he was actually very ill, dealt with poverty as a constant in his life and had some awful tragedies happen to him. His life was a struggle.
“That’s what was really shocking to me. How hard his life was and how, although he was well known as a poet in his time, he didn’t have a swanky rockstar existence.”
Alan adds that nearer the end of this life, Burns turned his focus to the collection of Scottish traditional songs.
“He edited and collated all of these songs – including works like Auld Lang Syne – which he edited and rewrote,” he says.
“That was his passion for the latter part of his life and had he not done this, we would not have hundreds of these Scottish songs. It’s really because of him that they have survived.”
The man behind the work
Burns’s colourful personal life and high libido meant that by the time he died at the age of only 37 in 1796 he had fathered 12 children to four different mothers – including his long-suffering wife Jean Armour.
The performance does not sugar-coat his legacy, but rather represents the man behind the work for which he is remembered and revered.
Preparing for such a physically-demanding show has been on Alan’s mind for some time and he ensured he did everything possible to keep himself in good shape.
“Over the last couple of years I’ve known it was coming,” he explains. “We did a workshop at the beginning of this year and after that I thought ‘OK you’ve really got to knuckle down’. I’ve been doing stuff – swimming or yoga – every day since then.”
He laughs: “But there’s nothing that can really prepare you for a rehearsal room dancing every day for hours – it’s exhausting!
“I wake up in the morning and I’m like one of those old cars that you start with a handle and it takes me a while to clunk together and get everything in working order.”
When it comes to eating and drinking, Alan says: “I’m vegan, so I feel I’ve got that on my side. I feel I should probably drink less and, for a while I stopped drinking altogether in preparation for this, but then I thought ‘Oh God, b****r that – I need a drink!’ But I do eat well and now that we’re into the performance it’s also about timing of eating.”
Alan adds: “I’ve never really done anything like this before and it’s something I feel excited about.
“I hope people understand that I am trying to show Robert Burns in a way they might not have perceived before – and I am also showing myself in a way they might not have perceived before.”
- Burn is at Perth Theatre on August 18 – 20. It also tours to His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen; Theatre Royal, Glasgow and Eden Court, Inverness.
- nationaltheatrescotland.com/events/burn
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