Spring 2012, Volume 12

Excerpt From Any Given Day, a Play by Linda McLean

IN A BAR. AROUND 2PM 

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE





JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE


JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE







DAVE



JACKIE




DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE









JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE



DAVE


JACKIE



DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE







JACKIE

DAVE

























JACKIE



DAVE









JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE















JACKIE














DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE


JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE



JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE











JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE




JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE






DAVE

JACKIE




DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE






DAVE

JACKIE


DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE






DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE




JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE





JACKIE

DAVE


JACKIE

DAVE




JACKIE



DAVE

JACKIE







DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE












JACKIE







DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

DAVE

JACKIE

Author's Statement:
 There's a wonderful UK playwright, Robert Holman, whose work is being 'rediscovered' at the moment.  No–one had to look very far to find him, he hadn't gone away or stopped writing excellent plays; he'd just fallen out of fashion.  This happens with astonishing regularity in the arts because in the same way we like new everything else:  governments;  gadgets;  shoes;  we like new playwrights.  It takes faith (or a huge publicity machine) to keep your eye trained on an artist of any medium.  I cite Robert Holman because one of his most admirable qualities is that he writes what he has to write, irrespective of current tastes and demands.  He follows his characters through every surprise they have up their sleeves and doesn't stop until they leave him alone.

Any Given Day is a play I felt I received; I certainly didn't consciously plan it.  I know now that it had been years in the gestation.  Since childhood I'd been impotently angry about the way people, like my uncle, were put into badly managed (and often brutal) institutions and left there.  I'd been aghast, too, thirty years later, at the way he was pitched out, totally unprepared, into an alien world.  But I had no idea that those events had been lying brewing at the back of my mind until I started to write Any Given Day.
 
Just before the beginning of the scene published here is a moment of real theatrical brutality.  I was shocked to my core when it emerged out of the gloriously gentle world of the first two characters.  I was so shocked I had to write it with my eyes closed, turning my head away from the screen.  After it was written I couldn't breathe properly.  It was equally difficult to read on my laptop the next day.  It's an incredibly difficult scene to stage and to watch.  I looked for a long time at what it was and realised I may well be entering Robert Holman territory.  I knew that some people would read or watch that scene and be dreadfully upset.  It upset me, for heaven's sake and I was the one who wrote it.  I didn't know why it had to happen that way, only that it had.  It had happened because I had followed the characters until they let me go.

Some days later I began to write the next scene; the one that begins in the bar, the one you will read here, and in this scene two different characters become increasingly, embarrassingly frank with one another.  I typed that open–mouthed, feeling that, at any moment, someone was going to send me to my room without supper.  But having committed to the first scene, I had no choice but to commit to this one.  I have the suspicion that allowing the first, coached the second into being.
And this is the result. 

To my amazement the play wasn't shunned; in fact I'm still surprised and delighted by the different people from different worlds who have taken to it. 

ANY GIVEN DAY had it's American Premier in April 2012 at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco with an extended run in response to critical and popular acclaim.  For more information on the Magic Theatre production, please visit: http://magictheatre.org/

 

 

BIO: Linda McLean was born in Glasgow where she studied and trained as a teacher.  She traveled, teaching English as a foreign language in Europe, America, Africa and Scandinavia before she wrote plays.

Her plays include, for the Traverse – This Is Water (2010), Any Given Day (2010), Strangers, Babies (Susan Smith Blackburn prize finalist), Shimmer (Herald Angel), Olga (from the original Finnish play by Laura Ruohonen) and One Good Beating (winner of Best One Act Play 2008). For Dundee Rep and Oran Mor: What Love Is (2011). For Paines Plough and Oran Mor: Riddance (Fringe First, Herald Angel) and The Uncertainty Files; for 7:84 Theatre Company – Cold Cuts and Doch an Doris; for Magnetic North – Word for Word; for RSAMD – Reminded of Beauty. She adapted Like Water for Chocolate (for Theatres sans Frontieres, from the novel by Laura Esquivel). She has also written for radio, most recently a political satire, And So Say All of Us, co-written with Duncan McMillan and Dan Rebellato.

Linda is Chairwoman of the Playwrights’ Studio Scotland and has worked for the British Council in Mexico City, Teluca and Bogota. She regularly works in schools and colleges, encouraging new writers to find their own voices. In 2009 she delivered the keynote speech to the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada.

She is currently under commission to the National Theatre of Scotland, Magnetic North, and the Traverse Theatre. Her new play Sex and God for Magnetic North will be produced in 2012.

Linda is the Creative Fellow at Edinburgh University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities.