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PREVIEW REPERTORY THE SEAGULL Ramshorn Theatre, Glasgow, Mon 14–Sat 19 Jun
For this, the 40th anniversary year of Strathclyde Theatre Group, its director Susan Triesman has decided to stage a version of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull simply because she considers it among the finest plays ever written. ‘It was one of the points where theatre changed in the late 19th and early 20th century,’ she recounts. ‘It’s completely tied up in the history of the Moscow Art Theatre and in everything Stanislavski was trying to do with actors. The play is full of people who are complex and passionate – even if they’re bored, they’re passionately bored.’ While aware that the first ever English translation of The Seagull was staged in Glasgow by George Calderon 101 years ago, Triesman has her cast working to the Michael Frayn version.
The tale of a group of Russian actors and artists who retreat to a country estate, the play deals in unrequited love and thwarted ambition in a manner which deliberately echoes Hamlet. Yet Triesman is directing with a lightness which she hopes will undermine the more tragic elements of previous translations. ‘It’s an amazing interweaving of people’s lives,’ she says, ‘where major events happen offstage. It was described by Chekov as comedy, but for years people only played the tragedy in it. It’s actually a very funny play, and things you don’t expect to make you laugh do make you laugh, because people’s desires are so strong in it.’ (David Pollock)
Theatre
PREVIEW PERFORMANCE ART ROSE AND BONES: SPIRIT AND STONES Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 11 & Sat 12 Jun
Glasgow’s Tramway has always been a venue that dares to be different. So it stands to reason that its in- house artists’ collective takes a unique approach to integrated work. Co-ordinated by Rachel Clive, the Theatre Arts Group is a coming together of artists with and without learning disabilities, working across a range of artforms. About to present its fourth production, Rose and Bones: Spirit and Stones, the group is committed to being as egalitarian as possible. ‘Everybody owns the work’ says Clive. ‘Over the years we’ve found that often, the minute somebody with learning disabilities is involved, there’s a sense that you can’t do anything interesting or explore ground that could be seen as dangerous. But we dare to explore artistically whatever people want to – we’re open to each other and what we can all do.’
The collective has fifteen members, nine of which will appear in the new show. Featuring live music, visual art, film and performance, Rose and Bones is based on
an old folk tale about sibling rivalry, during which a murder is revealed in a most unusual way. ‘One of the members of the group shared the story with us,’ explains Clive, ‘and in it, the truth comes out through the murder victims’ bones, which are turned into a musical instrument. We did some research and discovered that this folk tale exists in practically every culture across the world in one way or another. So we’ve made the story our own and interpreted it in different ways.’ Using footage shot inside Tramway and on a nearby
building site, original music performed on a range of instruments including piano, fiddle and double bass, plus an element of choral singing, Rose and Bones clearly takes the original tale in a number of interesting directions. ‘The story is very important and is the reference point
we’re all working within,’ says Clive. ‘But actually, the piece is more an exploration of what’s going on beneath the story, which is about human connection and disconnection. It’s dark, but it’s also tender.’ (Kelly Apter)
REVIEW NEW WORK ANY GIVEN DAY Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until 19 Jun ●●●●●
Linda McLean’s new play opens onto the tenement flat of an entertaining double act, Bill and Sadie, played by brother and sister Lewis and Kathryn Howden. This late middle-aged couple have a good, Beckettian back and forth, though something is not quite right. They forget too much, and repeat themselves, until it’s clear that their speech is not just stylised rambling, but that they are both mentally disabled. They are not waiting for Godot but for Bill’s niece Jackie to arrive for tea and toast. Predictably enough they don’t get what they’re expecting.
In the second part of the play it’s revealed that Jackie (Kate Dickie) has been at the pub where she works, sharing a drink with her boss (Phil McKee). Typically of McLean’s characters they both have some family history complicating their emotional lives and they riff on the idea of familial responsibility. In both parts the actors are uniformly excellent, in particular Kathryn Howden’s
Sadie is heartbreakingly endearing and Kate Dickie shows a mixture of weathered hardness and inner fragility that is subtle and compelling. However, the script gives them little below the unnervingly sharp surface of the dialogue, leaving their pain raw and difficult to grasp. Instead the play anchors itself in violence, trauma (emotional and physical) and crass sexual humour. Little meaning is brought to the characters’ pain. There is a bleak lesson in the unfairness and chaos of the world to be observed here, but it’s not one that sits very comfortably. (Jonny Ensall)
10-24 Jun 2010 THE LIST 91