Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
4 stars
When birds take flight they generally know where they’re going. Like the ornithologist couple in Zoe Strachan and Louise Welsh’s Glasgay!-commissioned play, however, the gulls that flock to the remote island Jacq and Fay are stranded on alongside them seem to have lost their way enough to become a little spooked by the experience. The radio’s dead, the power’s gone and it’s dark enough outside their cottage to imagine faces at the window as well as induce a personal paranoia in Fay about the state of their relationship.
Packed into the Citz’s Circle Studio space, Alison Peebles’ production is high on tension if not always action in a piece that sets down the ground rules of a Hitchcockian thriller, only to up-end them with the resentment of a far more intimate domestic spat and back again with a cliffhanger ending that sees the pair going willingly together towards the unknown. Where other directors might have piled gothic accoutrements and other shock tactics on with a trowel, Peebles allows the play to speak for itself with only sound designer Nichola Scruton’s understated noises off for comfort.
Selina Boyack and Veronica Leer play the couple similarly downbeat, sparring with a mix of affection and resentment that’s left quietly unspoken enough so that when there is a sudden lurch to the extreme it hits home simply through being genuinely unexpected as retreat turns to confrontation. At an hour’s length, it feels more like the pilot episode of some supernatural TV mini-series than a stand-alone work, and, obvious though the panicking bird metaphors may be, it can’t help but leave you wondering what happens next.
The Herald, October 22nd 2010
ends
4 stars
When birds take flight they generally know where they’re going. Like the ornithologist couple in Zoe Strachan and Louise Welsh’s Glasgay!-commissioned play, however, the gulls that flock to the remote island Jacq and Fay are stranded on alongside them seem to have lost their way enough to become a little spooked by the experience. The radio’s dead, the power’s gone and it’s dark enough outside their cottage to imagine faces at the window as well as induce a personal paranoia in Fay about the state of their relationship.
Packed into the Citz’s Circle Studio space, Alison Peebles’ production is high on tension if not always action in a piece that sets down the ground rules of a Hitchcockian thriller, only to up-end them with the resentment of a far more intimate domestic spat and back again with a cliffhanger ending that sees the pair going willingly together towards the unknown. Where other directors might have piled gothic accoutrements and other shock tactics on with a trowel, Peebles allows the play to speak for itself with only sound designer Nichola Scruton’s understated noises off for comfort.
Selina Boyack and Veronica Leer play the couple similarly downbeat, sparring with a mix of affection and resentment that’s left quietly unspoken enough so that when there is a sudden lurch to the extreme it hits home simply through being genuinely unexpected as retreat turns to confrontation. At an hour’s length, it feels more like the pilot episode of some supernatural TV mini-series than a stand-alone work, and, obvious though the panicking bird metaphors may be, it can’t help but leave you wondering what happens next.
The Herald, October 22nd 2010
ends
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