Theatre
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‘YOU GET TO SEE THE PERSON AT THE HEART OF THE MONSTER'
Tho Trevorso's original production of ills-both Gordon Quinn In 1m
Work OUinn clss
Steve Cramer talks to John Tiffany, director of new work at the NTS, about this revival of Chris Hannan’s 1985 classic, ELIZABETH GORDON QUINN.
Steve Cramer ()n the face of it. Iz'lizuhelh Gordon Quinn is a play about class. but it‘s a very complex examination of the issue.
John Tiffany It is about class. but in a very unusual way. it is a Glasgow tenement play which explodes the whole notion of what Glasgow tenement plays are. I think. When you see it alongside of Men Should
Weep or The Steamie. which are gallous and kind of
sentimental — I‘m not saying they're bad plays. but they‘re of a genre — you see that it‘s not what it initially seems to be. Considering its setting. during the l9l5 Glasgow rent strike. which saw the beginning of socialism in Scotland. the first time
mass protest ever worked. it doesn‘t become ‘one of
those plays‘. Whereas in Men Should Weep you meet the hard working. strong woman who works for her man and her weans. this woman is quite different. She actually doesn't give a fuck about all that. She refuses to acknowledge she‘s poor and isn’t going to join any paltry rent strike.
SC So. in a sense. it‘s about individualism?
JT There's this famous line in the play that goes: ‘I am not the working-class. I am Elizabeth Gordon Quinn.‘ There‘s a whole debate running through it that asks: in a socialist country where most things are agreed upon. what do you do with individualism‘.’ It‘s not the kind of individualism that Thatcher was preaching; it's a kind of artistic individualism.
SC But she isn't necessarily a very sympathetic individualist.
JT Well. you start thinking it's going to be about this heroine of the slums. but she‘s not. actually. she's a complete bitch. But even so. you really enjoy her — you can‘t help but like her. You also get to see the person at the heart of the monster. though. You unpeel 84 THE LIST 13—27 Apr 2006
the layers around her and you get to see what went into making her. It‘s about certain promises she made when she was young. So it's not a simple thing about liking or disliking her.
SC A lot of (‘hris Hannah's work has been about forces of transition in modern society. whether it be about a woman who changes her identity to
something more esotic in Suhrinu or the transition of
the millennium in Shinng Sou/i. This play seems to be about Scotland's transition into the modern and modernist world.
SC There‘s a lot of stuff about the force of transition. Things like unions emerged at this time. It was l.on d George who allowed this to kind of go ahead. It was the birth of mass movements. It's all about that. but it‘s also about putting familiar people in unfamiliar
places. You meet this woman who walks around as if
she‘s in a mansion. She talks about her life through Chopin. Mazurkas and Schubert. (This doesn‘t liiid that strange. because his dad was working-class. but was obsessed with the divine comedy. he wanted his children to work and get better.
SC There were some problems with the production when Siobhan Redmond left the cast and was replaced in the lead by (‘ara Kelly. How did that play out‘.’
JT It happened before we started. It was awful. but I completely understood what Siobhan did. I have no problems about it at all. She didn't agree with (This about where the character should be going. as he rewrote it. so I offered a way otit. And ('ara Kelly is an extraordinary actress. She‘s taken this opportunity and gone after it.
Elizabeth Gordon Quinn Dundee Rep, Tue 25-Sat 29 Apr, then touring.
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