Linlithgow Palace
4 stars
There was a glorious
informality to this major restaging of the oldest known play in
Scotland's dramatic history, presented as part of a major research
project involving the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the
University of Edinburgh and Historic Scotland. Before a cast of
almost forty actors wrestled with the full five hour version of Sir
David Lyndsay of the Mount's sixteenth century Scots language epic,
they milled about in the sunshine next to the outdoor playing area
set against the dramatic backdrop of Linlithgow Palace itself. While
some were in full period costume, others, presumably not scheduled to
appear onstage for a couple of hours, were in dressed-down modern day
civvies. While not deliberate, seeing the centuries brush up against
each other so casually gave a hint of just how much Lyndsay's play
addresses the here and now of a Scotland on the brink.
When the play itself
began, with the audience sitting on the grass inside a circular
wooden construction that linked three main playing areas via a
catwalk, it was with a fanfare from John Sampson's trumpet. Sampson
formed part of a six-piece band led by composer John Kielty, that
underscored the action with a mediaeval sounding mandolin and
flute-based soundtrack. What followed, as James Mackenzie's king is
led astray by the corrupt forces of church, state and commerce, is a
bawdy, technicolour cartoon-like pageant. The rogues, charlatans and
gold-diggers may get all the laughs, but there are some deadly
serious points being made beyond the knockabout first half of Greg
Thompson's production.
While one of these is
undoubtedly the reclaiming of Lyndsay's rich and playful text, which
comes complete with profanities intact, even greater political
significance comes into play. This happens largely in the second
half, which follows Lynday's original Interlude, in which Davie
McKay's Pauper steps out from the crowd to show the real effects of
poverty. While it is left to Tam Dean Burn’s angel-winged Divine
Correction, Alison Peebles' Verity and Gerda Stevenson's Good Counsel
to give the court its moral compass back, it is Keith Fleming's
revolutionary firebrand, John The Common weal, who takes real action.
Here then, was a once
in a lifetime experience that breathed fresh life into Lyndsay's text
that took it away from the perceived dryness of academic study and
the heritage industry with the ribald playfulness which Thompson's
top-notch cast brought to it.
Lyndsay's most
important message with The Three Estates is that opportunists in
power will be found out, and can be deposed by the people they serve.
In this way, even if he lets a few chancers off the hook, Lyndsay is
highlighting a thinking that is utterly contemporary, in which
change, constitutional or otherwise, is not exacted from on high, but
from the slow burning grassroots movement of the common man and
woman. Power to the people, then, in what just might be the most
urgent and radically up to the minute play around right now.
The Herald, June 10th 2013
ends
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