How does contemporary Scottish drama travel? Internationally, as plays by David Harrower, David Greig, Henry Adam and Gregory Burke will testify to, it’s not a problem. Plays by Harrower and Greig regularly crop up in the European repertoire, with Harrower’s play Knives In Hens receiving umpteen productions in Germany alone. Henry Adam’s The People Next Door toured the Balkan states at length, while Burke’s debut, Gagarin Way, travelled the globe. More recently, Greig’s play Damascus recently toured to the U.S. and will shortly travel to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Black Watch, Burke’s play about the Fife-based army regiment, has been a runaway international phenomenon since the night it opened.
But what about closer to home? Getting a second production of a new play is hard enough in Scotland, never mind further afield. Only recently, after all, have plays such as Chris Hannan’s Elizabeth Gordon Quinn (and Shining Souls, come to that), Greig’s Outlying Islands and Europe, Harrower’s Knives In Hens and one or two others received fresh appraisal since their debuts. Why, then, one wonders, is a studio theatre in Bath in the South-west of England, about to present the third revival in a row of a play by a Scottish writer originally presented at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre?
Because when Gagarin Way opens at the 130-seat Ustinov – the studio wing of Bath’s Theatre Royal complex – at the end of this month, it will follow productions of both Knives In Hens and Alan Wilkins’ 2007 hit, Carthage Must Be Destroyed. This trio of plays follows a 2006 Ustinov production of David Greig’s Outlying Islands, which set the ball rolling for the current, and all too rare, Anglo-Scots alliance.
Having said that, “We’ve never really pitched them as Scottish texts,” Andrew Smaje, artistic director of The Ustinov for the last nine years, points out. “Putting these plays on is more to do with the idea of second productions of new plays still being rare. While that’s not the case with Knives In Hens, given what Gagarin Way meant when it first came out almost ten years ago now, it’s bizarre to think that this is the first time it’s been produced in Britain since. But the only real connecting factor between everything is that they’re all great plays with big ideas. Because I run a 130 seat theatre, those ideas have to be powerful and grab the audience.”
Both Knives In Hens and Carthage Must Be Destroyed have been well received by Bath audiences, who quite possibly may not have even been aware of their Scots origins. Knives In Hens, after all, is written in a pared-down poetry, and in Bath was played in a Welsh accent that one imagines would lend itself to the rhythms and cadences of each line with a fresh sense of grace and beauty. Carthage, lest we not forget, is set in ancient Rome, although the Bath production actually featured more Scots actors than appeared in the Traverse premiere.
Gagarin Way, however, is a riskier proposition. More geographically specific right down to its title drawn from a street name in Lumphinnans, Fife, its treatise on terrorism among the politically disillusioned must out of necessity be rooted in the play’s original locale. As director Lorne Campbell, who also directed the Ustinov’s production of Carthage Must Be Destroyed following his original treatment during his tenure as Associate Director of The Traverse, points out, however, “When Gagarin Way has been done internationally, it’s always been adapted for that country. It’s not a play about late 1990s Scotland, but is more about being at the end of a political cycle. That was present when it was first done, and is even more apparent now, where we’re all wondering what’s next.”
As the studio off-shoot of the more commercially minded Theatre Royal, The Ustinov, which opened in 1997 following an appeal by actor Peter Ustinov, is in a unique position. Along with the theatre’s third space, The Egg, created solely for work for young people, The Ustinov isn’t subsidised by public funding in any way. Rather, starry main-stage shows such as Lloyd George Knew My Father, itself about to arrive on Scotland’s bigger stages in a production led by Edward Fox and Claire Bloom, effectively under-write the two smaller spaces activities. As does too the annual season by the Peter Hall Company, which similarly generates enough revenue to allow the whole of the Theatre Royal complex to be self-supporting in a way that would make theatre managers at every level this side of the border green with envy.
Such relative economic freedom, after all, has allowed Smaje to develop an increasingly adventurous programme of in-house productions supplemented by visiting companies. Furthering the Edinburgh connections in this respect are visits by The Idiot Colony and In A Thousand Pieces, two shows which made waves during 2008’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
“We’ve got a really good theatre ecology in Bath,” Smaje observes of a scene that includes two other fringe-based venues in a city that looks not unlike Edinburgh New Town. “Bath is a particular kind of place, and we want to excite audiences. There’s undoubtedly a rich seam of work coming out of Scotland, and The Traverse in particular, and if the best work is coming from there, then that’s where we’re going to get it. The Traverse produces the best new work in the same way that the Royal Court does, but there isn’t always the same opportunity for transfers as there is in London.”
The Ustinov isn’t, however, the only English South-West of England theatre to champion Scots work. As Campbell points out, The Drum, Plymouth, played a pivotal role as co-producer, with The Tron, of the original Edinburgh International Festival production of Anthony Neilson’s The Wonderful World of Dissocia as well as the premiere of Gregory Burke’s second play, The Straits.
In the current economic climate, co-productions in this mould are clearly a viable way for forward-thinking theatres to operate. Beyond financial imperatives, though, it also opens up a two-way street between companies that physically as well as holistically aren’t that far from each other, but which have previously been kept apart by bureaucratic barriers.
“Andrew’s trying to define a new theatre space,” is how Campbell sees it, “and to give the Ustinov an identity. Although things have changed since the National Theatre of Scotland was founded, there still isn’t a lit of Scottish work seen in London. Seeing plays like Gagarin Way in Bath is a great thing, and can only help to benefit the eco-structure of theatre on both sides.”
Given such an ongoing level of cross-border artistic activity, then, the next step surely would be to forge links even further. For the immediate future, while Smaje says he doesn’t have his eye on any other Traverse play at the moment, neither is he ruling out the possibility of a co-production. Given the links already made, as well as the economic climate, one suspects this will happen sooner rather than later.
As Smaje himself observes of the Scottish playwriting scene, “When there’s a nexus of theatrical activity that’s very disparate but equally powerful, you don’t want to let it lie.”
Gagarin Way, The Ustinov, Theatre Royal, Bath, January 28-February 13th
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
The Herald, January 13th 2009
ends
But what about closer to home? Getting a second production of a new play is hard enough in Scotland, never mind further afield. Only recently, after all, have plays such as Chris Hannan’s Elizabeth Gordon Quinn (and Shining Souls, come to that), Greig’s Outlying Islands and Europe, Harrower’s Knives In Hens and one or two others received fresh appraisal since their debuts. Why, then, one wonders, is a studio theatre in Bath in the South-west of England, about to present the third revival in a row of a play by a Scottish writer originally presented at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre?
Because when Gagarin Way opens at the 130-seat Ustinov – the studio wing of Bath’s Theatre Royal complex – at the end of this month, it will follow productions of both Knives In Hens and Alan Wilkins’ 2007 hit, Carthage Must Be Destroyed. This trio of plays follows a 2006 Ustinov production of David Greig’s Outlying Islands, which set the ball rolling for the current, and all too rare, Anglo-Scots alliance.
Having said that, “We’ve never really pitched them as Scottish texts,” Andrew Smaje, artistic director of The Ustinov for the last nine years, points out. “Putting these plays on is more to do with the idea of second productions of new plays still being rare. While that’s not the case with Knives In Hens, given what Gagarin Way meant when it first came out almost ten years ago now, it’s bizarre to think that this is the first time it’s been produced in Britain since. But the only real connecting factor between everything is that they’re all great plays with big ideas. Because I run a 130 seat theatre, those ideas have to be powerful and grab the audience.”
Both Knives In Hens and Carthage Must Be Destroyed have been well received by Bath audiences, who quite possibly may not have even been aware of their Scots origins. Knives In Hens, after all, is written in a pared-down poetry, and in Bath was played in a Welsh accent that one imagines would lend itself to the rhythms and cadences of each line with a fresh sense of grace and beauty. Carthage, lest we not forget, is set in ancient Rome, although the Bath production actually featured more Scots actors than appeared in the Traverse premiere.
Gagarin Way, however, is a riskier proposition. More geographically specific right down to its title drawn from a street name in Lumphinnans, Fife, its treatise on terrorism among the politically disillusioned must out of necessity be rooted in the play’s original locale. As director Lorne Campbell, who also directed the Ustinov’s production of Carthage Must Be Destroyed following his original treatment during his tenure as Associate Director of The Traverse, points out, however, “When Gagarin Way has been done internationally, it’s always been adapted for that country. It’s not a play about late 1990s Scotland, but is more about being at the end of a political cycle. That was present when it was first done, and is even more apparent now, where we’re all wondering what’s next.”
As the studio off-shoot of the more commercially minded Theatre Royal, The Ustinov, which opened in 1997 following an appeal by actor Peter Ustinov, is in a unique position. Along with the theatre’s third space, The Egg, created solely for work for young people, The Ustinov isn’t subsidised by public funding in any way. Rather, starry main-stage shows such as Lloyd George Knew My Father, itself about to arrive on Scotland’s bigger stages in a production led by Edward Fox and Claire Bloom, effectively under-write the two smaller spaces activities. As does too the annual season by the Peter Hall Company, which similarly generates enough revenue to allow the whole of the Theatre Royal complex to be self-supporting in a way that would make theatre managers at every level this side of the border green with envy.
Such relative economic freedom, after all, has allowed Smaje to develop an increasingly adventurous programme of in-house productions supplemented by visiting companies. Furthering the Edinburgh connections in this respect are visits by The Idiot Colony and In A Thousand Pieces, two shows which made waves during 2008’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
“We’ve got a really good theatre ecology in Bath,” Smaje observes of a scene that includes two other fringe-based venues in a city that looks not unlike Edinburgh New Town. “Bath is a particular kind of place, and we want to excite audiences. There’s undoubtedly a rich seam of work coming out of Scotland, and The Traverse in particular, and if the best work is coming from there, then that’s where we’re going to get it. The Traverse produces the best new work in the same way that the Royal Court does, but there isn’t always the same opportunity for transfers as there is in London.”
The Ustinov isn’t, however, the only English South-West of England theatre to champion Scots work. As Campbell points out, The Drum, Plymouth, played a pivotal role as co-producer, with The Tron, of the original Edinburgh International Festival production of Anthony Neilson’s The Wonderful World of Dissocia as well as the premiere of Gregory Burke’s second play, The Straits.
In the current economic climate, co-productions in this mould are clearly a viable way for forward-thinking theatres to operate. Beyond financial imperatives, though, it also opens up a two-way street between companies that physically as well as holistically aren’t that far from each other, but which have previously been kept apart by bureaucratic barriers.
“Andrew’s trying to define a new theatre space,” is how Campbell sees it, “and to give the Ustinov an identity. Although things have changed since the National Theatre of Scotland was founded, there still isn’t a lit of Scottish work seen in London. Seeing plays like Gagarin Way in Bath is a great thing, and can only help to benefit the eco-structure of theatre on both sides.”
Given such an ongoing level of cross-border artistic activity, then, the next step surely would be to forge links even further. For the immediate future, while Smaje says he doesn’t have his eye on any other Traverse play at the moment, neither is he ruling out the possibility of a co-production. Given the links already made, as well as the economic climate, one suspects this will happen sooner rather than later.
As Smaje himself observes of the Scottish playwriting scene, “When there’s a nexus of theatrical activity that’s very disparate but equally powerful, you don’t want to let it lie.”
Gagarin Way, The Ustinov, Theatre Royal, Bath, January 28-February 13th
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
The Herald, January 13th 2009
ends
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