FESTIVAL FEATURES | Zinnie Harris
BRINGING THE HOUSE DOWN
As Rhinoceros and Meet Me at Dawn both garner rave reviews, playwright Zinnie Harris has become the unsurprising hit of the International Festival. With the remounting of her Oresteia: This Restless House set to open in the last week of August, Gareth K Vile
catches up with one of Scotland’s most dynamic and eclectic writers
Z innie Harris has long been recognised as one of Scotland’s most enterprising theatre-makers, with a reputation for scripts that express a feminist sensibility and a willingness to confront brutal realities. At this year’s International Festival, she has an incredible three plays: her timely Ionesco reworking Rhinoceros (see review, page 88), i rst-rate original work Meet Me at Dawn (see review, page 77) and her take on Aeschylus’ Oresteia: This Restless House (pictured, right), which premiered at Glasgow’s Citz in 2016 but will rear its i erce head again in the last week of the EIF. Taking on Aeschylus’ tragedy speaks of her ambition, tackling the trilogy that stands at the beginning of western drama and establishes an argument for male dominance.
‘I was drawn to it because of the breadth of canvas and the muscularity of the work,’ she explains. Yet despite the gravity of Aeschylus’ script, she can see her adaptation in the context of her own interests. ‘For a long time, I have been drawn to stories where I can reconi gure, particularly around the female characters. So, in my original plays, it is putting women in more central roles, in everyman roles: when adapting the classics, taking the received notion of a character, such as Clytemnestra, who is maybe already evil. I felt that if we approached her as if she were a modern character we would have a different telling.’ Harris’ revamp – which won Best New Play at last year’s Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland – draws attention away from the son compelled to avenge his father’s death by killing his mother towards his sister, Electra. All three plays in the trilogy (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides) are reworked in the four hour-plus This Restless House – The Eumenides most explicitly to a contemporary setting – while retaining a tragic chorus and grappling with the source material’s preoccupations.
Harris continues: ‘I didn’t just want to say the chorus is too complicated but use it as one would for a contemporary play.’ They are given a more active role, especially in the i rst play, while Harris realised that Aeschylus’ use of the deus ex machina would not cut it: ‘Having taken an audience all the way through this story with a modern sensibility, I couldn’t just bring a God in to resolve the story. Aeschylus was making a point about democracy, but there are things to be said about the nature of forgiveness.’ By identifying the resonant
12 THE LIST FESTIVAL 17–28 Aug 2017
themes that have carried over from the ancient Athenian past, Harris re-energises this seminal myth by discovering contemporary parallels. The Eumenides – female spirits who avenge matricide – are a case in point. ‘If we saw someone being chased by them today, we would see it in a psychiatric context, internal demons,’ she says. This insight led to her boldest move, setting the i nale in a psychiatric unit. Through collaboration with director Dominic Hill, This Restless House becomes an immediate and modern parable about the pressures of familial responsibility.
Hill is a frequent Harris collaborator, and her awareness of his style allows her to explore the limits of scripted theatre. ‘Dominic has been developing a thing with music – so I surprised him with the chorus singing a song, and he makes use of an ensemble feel that I admire – I knew which things he would run with: like me, he’s not afraid of going to the dark place in a play,’ laughs Harris. Hill’s bold vision, which draws on the history of theatre and incorporates suggestive scenography, live music and Brechtian trickery without ever forgetting the importance of strong performances from the actors, has set the pace for Scottish directors over the past decade. And in This Restless House, Harris and Hill make a startling statement of intent, that they are not afraid to take on the classics. Despite the show’s critical success – Pauline Knowles’ Clytemnestra was universally praised, the script was celebrated for its intelligence and Hill’s trademark directorial style added to the sense of occasion – Harris admits that she was sad when the run at the Citizens ended, and is excited about its second life as part of the EIF. While the ‘Scottish slot’ at the International Festival is often jokingly referred to as ‘cursed’, the decision to programme a show that has already proved its pedigree will go a long way to removing that stigma. This Restless House is a work that rewards repeated viewing, and opens up conversations about the tensions hidden in the family home, the power of men over women and the possibility of reworking the classic Greek tragedies to make them relevant without losing their historical resonance.
Oresteia: This Restless House, Lyceum, 23–27 Aug, 6pm, £10–£32. Preview 22 Aug, £7.50–£23. Meet Me At Dawn, Traverse, until 27 Aug (not 21), £21.50 (£16.50).