David Greig has long been considered one of the most adventurous and inquiring of this country’s playwrights over the last decade. Two instances in the last week, however, finally confirmed this status. First of all, Dundee Rep have just opened their production of his play, Europe, which will travel to London’s Barbican Centre as part of this year’s Barbican International Theatre Festival (Bite07). This will be the first UK production of the play since it marked Greig’s main-stage debut at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre almost 13 years ago.
A second, no less significant revival occurred last week, when Edinburgh University English Literature Department produced Greig’s more recent play, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union, at The Bedlam Theatre. Both productions indicate that the up and coming young 20-something who penned Europe in 1994 has matured into an elder statesman whose work has entered not just the professional repertoire, but has pricked the hungry curiosity of academe as well. Two other of Greig’s plays, San Diego and Victoria, have also been produced by student companies. Both RSAMD’s take on San Diego and Queen Margaret University College’s look at Victoria are the sole life those particular plays have seen since their debut.
“It’s not entirely a new experience,” Greig says of revisiting Europe, albeit at a distance, after such a long time, “because some of my plays do get done again every so often, and it’s always interesting going back to them. With Europe especially, because it was I suppose my first fully-fledged piece of work, it’s been a delight to see how well it’s stood up, but it’s also been quite dispiriting, because there’s an energy and a boldness and a panache, and thinking, God, I wish I had that now. So it’s sometimes felt like looking at another writer, and feeling both slightly superior, but also jealous of the balls the play has. It’s aiming high in a way you can only do when you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
Set in the railway station of a border-town in the midst of an un-named conflict, Europe’s original production echoed the then ongoing turmoil in the Balkan countries. Given the current global situation, one could argue that the play is even more timely. Then again, one could argue that has been the case for the last decade. Which makes its belated reappearance even odder. For Greig, though, it’s a simple case of economics.
“Most revivals are driven by a well-known actor wanting to play the lead role in something. But there are no lead roles in this. It’s an ensemble piece, and because to some extent I was an unknown quantity, any big-scale revival was never going to happen.”
Revivals of plays by living writers are still rare in this country. Only relatively recently have there been major revivals of crucial works by the likes of Liz Lochead and John Byrne. While the late Roddy McMillan’s The Bevellers has just received its first production in over a decade, lesser celebrated works of the 1970s have been all but airbrushed out of history. Writers who first came to prominence in the 1980s including John Clifford and Chris Hannan have a pocket-full of masterpieces deserving of another life, as The National Theatre of Scotland recently proved with their production of Hannan’s Elizabeth Gordon Quinn.
Europe has had umpteen productions abroad, as has recent Olivier Award winner David Harrower’s own debut, Knives In Hens. Yet that play too had to wait a decade before being revived on home turf. With both writers now with a considerably higher profile than they’ve ever had, it’s understandable then, that the younger generation of theatre-makers should wish to take stock. This is precisely what happened with Europe’s director Douglas Rintoul, who’s harboured a desire to do the play ever since reading it a decade ago.
“That whole period of playwriting that came out of 1993, 1994 and so on,” Rintoul observes, “both in Scotland and in England is ripe for rediscovery by a generation who need to look at it in relation to what’s happening now.”
Hence, not just Europe, but The Bedlam production of Cosmonaut.
“You don’t know whether it has survived until you see how it goes down,” Greig says. “Because that moment it came out of was such a long time ago, I don’t feel any sense of ownership over it, and feel totally objective towards it. Europe wasn’t a prescient play when it was talking about asylum-seekers and so forth. It’s just that nothing’s changed. If it was Bosnia before, it’s Iraq now. If it does enter the cannon or something, it’s only because people are still having horrible wars.”
As a footnote to this current wave of Greig revivals, the playwright recalls a time shortly after graduating from Bristol University. To make ends meet, he and his partner set up a scheme in the summer holidays whereby they would make a play with nursery-age children for a week. Effectively providing a cheap baby-sitting service with activities thrown in, for Greig it was valuable in terms of theatre-making experience. As The Cosmonaut went into production, Greig was delighted to hear that one of his young charges, aged six last time he saw her, was now a student working on the production. Now that really is when you know that you’ve arrived.
Europe, Dundee Rep, until March 10, Barbican Centre, London, Match 15-31, Dundee Rep, April 4-7
The Herald, March 6 2007
ends
A second, no less significant revival occurred last week, when Edinburgh University English Literature Department produced Greig’s more recent play, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union, at The Bedlam Theatre. Both productions indicate that the up and coming young 20-something who penned Europe in 1994 has matured into an elder statesman whose work has entered not just the professional repertoire, but has pricked the hungry curiosity of academe as well. Two other of Greig’s plays, San Diego and Victoria, have also been produced by student companies. Both RSAMD’s take on San Diego and Queen Margaret University College’s look at Victoria are the sole life those particular plays have seen since their debut.
“It’s not entirely a new experience,” Greig says of revisiting Europe, albeit at a distance, after such a long time, “because some of my plays do get done again every so often, and it’s always interesting going back to them. With Europe especially, because it was I suppose my first fully-fledged piece of work, it’s been a delight to see how well it’s stood up, but it’s also been quite dispiriting, because there’s an energy and a boldness and a panache, and thinking, God, I wish I had that now. So it’s sometimes felt like looking at another writer, and feeling both slightly superior, but also jealous of the balls the play has. It’s aiming high in a way you can only do when you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
Set in the railway station of a border-town in the midst of an un-named conflict, Europe’s original production echoed the then ongoing turmoil in the Balkan countries. Given the current global situation, one could argue that the play is even more timely. Then again, one could argue that has been the case for the last decade. Which makes its belated reappearance even odder. For Greig, though, it’s a simple case of economics.
“Most revivals are driven by a well-known actor wanting to play the lead role in something. But there are no lead roles in this. It’s an ensemble piece, and because to some extent I was an unknown quantity, any big-scale revival was never going to happen.”
Revivals of plays by living writers are still rare in this country. Only relatively recently have there been major revivals of crucial works by the likes of Liz Lochead and John Byrne. While the late Roddy McMillan’s The Bevellers has just received its first production in over a decade, lesser celebrated works of the 1970s have been all but airbrushed out of history. Writers who first came to prominence in the 1980s including John Clifford and Chris Hannan have a pocket-full of masterpieces deserving of another life, as The National Theatre of Scotland recently proved with their production of Hannan’s Elizabeth Gordon Quinn.
Europe has had umpteen productions abroad, as has recent Olivier Award winner David Harrower’s own debut, Knives In Hens. Yet that play too had to wait a decade before being revived on home turf. With both writers now with a considerably higher profile than they’ve ever had, it’s understandable then, that the younger generation of theatre-makers should wish to take stock. This is precisely what happened with Europe’s director Douglas Rintoul, who’s harboured a desire to do the play ever since reading it a decade ago.
“That whole period of playwriting that came out of 1993, 1994 and so on,” Rintoul observes, “both in Scotland and in England is ripe for rediscovery by a generation who need to look at it in relation to what’s happening now.”
Hence, not just Europe, but The Bedlam production of Cosmonaut.
“You don’t know whether it has survived until you see how it goes down,” Greig says. “Because that moment it came out of was such a long time ago, I don’t feel any sense of ownership over it, and feel totally objective towards it. Europe wasn’t a prescient play when it was talking about asylum-seekers and so forth. It’s just that nothing’s changed. If it was Bosnia before, it’s Iraq now. If it does enter the cannon or something, it’s only because people are still having horrible wars.”
As a footnote to this current wave of Greig revivals, the playwright recalls a time shortly after graduating from Bristol University. To make ends meet, he and his partner set up a scheme in the summer holidays whereby they would make a play with nursery-age children for a week. Effectively providing a cheap baby-sitting service with activities thrown in, for Greig it was valuable in terms of theatre-making experience. As The Cosmonaut went into production, Greig was delighted to hear that one of his young charges, aged six last time he saw her, was now a student working on the production. Now that really is when you know that you’ve arrived.
Europe, Dundee Rep, until March 10, Barbican Centre, London, Match 15-31, Dundee Rep, April 4-7
The Herald, March 6 2007
ends
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