Òran Mór, Glasgow
Four stars
Some stories should never be told. This is made clear by matriarch Marion in Izzy Gray’s new play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s autumn season of lunchtime theatre. Given the Orkney set backdrop of Gray’s drama, one might say secrets revealed here are best left buried at sea.
So it goes with Marion, Elsie and Bess, three of the women left behind in the seaport of Hamvenroe - the ancient Viking name of what is now Stromness - when their men folk disappear for months on end on whaling expeditions. As the trio go on with the daily grind despite the absence, a communal anxiety simmers to the surface. Beyond it, unexplained mysteries on their own doorstep have a seismic effect that erupts into view, only for it to die down once more in a conspiracy of silence, as if nothing ever happened.
There is a brooding fire of unspoken dissent at the heart of Gray’s play, written in a rich Orcadian Scots that in the mouths of the three women comes possessed with a raw physicality that pierces the wilful gloom of Beth Morton’s production. This is brought to life with a knowing ferocity by Joyce Falconer as Marion, Shawney Henderson as Elsie and Emma Tracey as Bess, whose different forms of rebellion cross generations and oceans beyond the dark domestic confines of Gillian Argo’s set.
This is brought to bear even more by the sea shanties sung by the trio in Bethany Tennick’s haunting vocal arrangements. These allow each of the women to find their own voice even as they lament those who may never return. The result is a powerful piece of myth making that offers some kind of hope for those behind it to strike out for lands of their own.
The Herald, September 24th 2026
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