When
David Harrower’s debut play, Knives in Hens, first appeared at the Traverse
Theatre in Edinburgh in 1995, one of the many startling things about a work now
regarded as a modern classic was the presence onstage of actress Pauline
Knowles. Knowles’ performance as the young woman who finds her life in a
repressive and arcane rural community transformed by the power of language gave
a complex and mysterious text a depth and an emotional richness that brought
the play to remarkable, liberating life.
Knowles
continued to bring a quietly fearless magic to everything she appeared in over
the next 23 years, right up to her untimely death aged 50 in October last year.
This was the case whether in new plays at the Traverse, bringing a wicked sense
of fun to comic roles such as The Belles Stratagem or deadpan musicality to
artist David Shrigley’s opera, Pass the Spoon. Latterly she unleashed a torrent
of fury as Clytemnestra in Zinnie Harris’ astonishing reworking of the
Oresteia. It was arguably what Knowles brought to Knives in Hens which in part
caused her to make her own leap to become such a magnificent actress.
Knowles’
legacy is acknowledged this month when for one night only a very special
staging of Harrower’s play will take place at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in
Edinburgh. This will be co-produced by Harrower and Philip Howard, director of
the play’s original production while artistic director, and who now leads the
Pearlfisher company, which is presenting this one-off.
Howard
and Harrower’s new look at the play is a fund-raiser for the new Pauline Knowles
Scholarship Fund, which aims to support drama students attending the Royal
Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where Knowles was a student when it was
the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Rather than simply present a
standard rehearsed reading, as well as reuniting the Traverse production’s two
male actors, Michael Nardone and Lewis Howden, the performance will feature
twenty-five of Scotland’s finest actresses taking on the role created by
Knowles.
“Pauline
was amazing,” says Howard. “Both David and I were completely floored by her
death, and this idea has been growing since we first talked about doing
something at her funeral. It seemed a very practical response to how we were
feeling emotionally, and also to mark the importance of her performance in
Knives in Hens and what she brought to the play at the start of her career, as
well as the great actress she was later.”
Harrower
had never met Knowles before Howard cast her in his play.
“It was
a leap into the unknown,” he says. “She had this translucent permeable quality
to everything she did. She didn’t intellectualise things, but just put her head
down and got on with it, and totally inhabited the character. She was never
effusive and wouldn’t flatter you. She was so singular, and had no actorly
ways, but she made acting look effortless, so it was just an extension of her
personality.”
Crucial
to the performance too will be the appearance of contemporary chamber group, Mr
McFall’s Chamber, who will perform the score composed by the late Martyn
Bennett, who also appeared onstage in the original production.
“Martyn’s
music was a crucial part of that production,” says Howard, “so getting Mr
McFall’s Chamber to do it is a way of honouring Martyn as well.”
Howard
worked with Knowles numerous times at the Traverse, and, like Harrower,
acknowledges her wilful singularity in everything she did.
“Pauline
had an extraordinarily subtle way of conveying emotion,” he says, “and she had
a slightly Presbyterian acting style, which was about never wanting to give you
too much, and that was essential for new writing, which is all about the play
rather than show-boating.
“Pauline
had the ability to tell a story without appearing to do too much. She had this
amazing face. On one level she could look blank, but she acted with her eyes
and her eyebrows rather than her mouth. That made her delicious to work with,
because everything she did was full of nuance, and what was brilliant about
Pauline in Knives in Hens is she made you feel you were in the sixteenth
century without seeming to do anything.
Harrower
only worked with Knowles once more after Knives in Hens, directing her in his play,
A Slow Air.
“She had
this one expression that would terrify me,” he remembers. “If you gave her a
note, this eyebrow would go up and she’d just look at you, and she didn’t have
to say anything.”
It was
this steeliness both on and off stage that made Knowles so riveting to watch.
“She had
a quiet determination, a rigour and patience,” Howard remembers. “She was very
steadfast, but she was no saint. She didn’t suffer fools gladly. If you ever
gave Pauline a duff note, that eyebrow told you what an idiot you were.”
While
one can only speculate on what might have happened next for Knowles, it was
clear she was an actress in her prime.
“You
play this game,” says Harrower, “where you think, if Pauline hadn’t died, what
would she have gone on to do? I think she would’ve become this immense figure
in Scottish theatre, and that makes her loss all the more painful. She touched
a lot of people’s lives, and it’s important to honour that.”
Knives
in Hens will be performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on June 11,
with all proceeds going to the Pauline Knowles Scholarship Fund at the Royal
Conservatoire of Scotland.
The Herald, June 1st 2019.
ends
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