Theatre
PREVIEW WORK IN TRANSLATION THE COMPANY WILL OVERLOOK A MOMENT OF MADNESS Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 7–Sat 12 Feb; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 15–Sat 19 Feb results: ‘Because it’s an adaptation, most of the hard work has already been done. I’m not a very academic person so I just did what I could with my instincts and I think I’m happy with it.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman)
PREVIEW NEW PLAY JUST CHECKING Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 12 Feb
For an actor, no job is for life. Not even when you’re the star of Britain’s longest running cop show. So when Blythe Duff (aka DI Jackie Reid) found herself in between series of Taggart in 2009, she thought it would be prudent to have another string to her bow.
‘I was just shaking myself up a wee bit and thinking, ‘What is my life going to be if and when Taggart stops?’ says Duff who set up a production company, Datum Point, and commissioned a one-woman play from Waterloo Road writer Karen McLachlan. That play, Just Checking, is now
hitting the stage with Duff playing Izzy Grant, a middle-aged bride-to-be whose OCD is getting the better of her. It’s a comedy with a serious point: ‘If people are laughing, I hope it’s at her story and not the fact she struggles to get through her day.’
After her recent turns in Be Near Me for the NTS and David Harrower’s Good with People, she is back on home turf. ‘I love the fact that you bring an element of your craft on television into the theatre,’ she says. ‘I love that stillness. Just Checking is a very physical piece, but I need to find the moments to give the audience a breather.’ (Mark Fisher)
I N L L E H C A R
This Spring’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint season features a cross-city collaboration between Glasgow’s Oran Mor and the National Theatre of Scotland’s Reveal season at the Traverse in Edinburgh. Featuring five new adaptations of Latin American plays, it kicks off with Meyer- Whitworth Award-winner Morna Pearson’s version of The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness by celebrated Venezuelan dramatist Rodolfo Santana. Santana’s breakthrough play focuses on a loyal Caracas factory worker who undergoes psychological treatment following a violent incident at his workplace. And although it’s distinctly set in the political climate of 1970s Venezuela, Elgin-born Pearson sees strong parallels with today’s economic situation in the UK. ‘It reminded me of when the recession started and some companies asked employees to reduce their hours or take a pay cut,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t a very nice choice. It made me consider at what point companies are taking advantage and how things can possibly go back to normal afterwards.’
A self-confessed worrier, Pearson has been working with a literal translation of the drama by University of Glasgow Professor Mike Gonzalez (who translated all the plays in this Play, Pie, Pint programme) and admits to feeling ‘overwhelming pressure’ towards the project, her first adaptation. But, in typically modest fashion, she seems pleased with the
84 THE LIST 3–17 Feb 2011
PREVIEW MODERN DANCE RAMBERT DANCE COMPANY Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 16–Fri 18 Feb
For many dance companies, the triple-bill is almost a guilty pleasure. Brought out once a year, it can’t hope to compete with the pulling power of a full-length narrative. Yet, throughout its history, Rambert Dance Company has served up triple bills as if they were the plat du jour, attracting large crowds along the way.
‘It seems to be what we’re good at,’ says Rambert’s artistic director, Mark Baldwin. ‘We’re one of the few companies in the world whose diet is triple-bills, and I think it’s a lovely way to show people dance. Madame Rambert used to say it was like going to an art gallery, where you look at different paintings. So even though we sell the tour on one work, we pack other things around it to support that.’
This year, the central work is Awakenings, a dramatic piece
choreographed by Aletta Collins, inspired by true-life stories in Dr Oliver Sacks’ book of the same name. ‘I think Aletta has pulled it off beautifully,’ says Baldwin. ‘Because when you’re dealing with a subject as serious as Encephalitis Lethargica, it’s nice to have little touches of black humour.’ Opening the evening is Monolith, a world premiere by Tim Rushton, an English-born choreographer who danced in Germany for many years before becoming artistic director of Danish Dance Theatre. ‘I can see all the European things Tim has picked up and filtered into his work,’ says Baldwin. ‘But he’s also got a tidy English precision, because he trained at the Royal Ballet School.’
The evening closes with Cardoon Club by Berliner, Henrietta Horn. ‘It’s
the smiley fun piece,’ says Baldwin. ‘It’s cool, understated, sardonic, gorgeous to look at and a lovely sort of lollypop at the end.’ One of the skills involved in building a triple bill, is knowing what to
position where. How does Baldwin go about it? ‘I’ll write the pieces down on a piece of cardboard and stand them up somewhere,’ he explains. ‘and as I pass them I’m thinking “is that the right order?” Because often if you change the order, it makes you see the works in a completely different way.’ (Kelly Apter)
PREVIEW NEW WRITING THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 9 & Thu 10 Feb, then touring
The National Theatre of Scotland’s new season feels even more particularly Scottish than usual, with a number of pieces tapping into old traditions. Alongside the exciting looking revivals of classics like Knives in Hens, though, it’s great to see some new pieces of writing – even if, as is the case with The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, they draw on some very old source material.
‘There’s so much weird richness in the Border ballads,’ says director Wils Wilson, who has created the piece collaboratively with writer David Greig and musical director Alasdair McCrae, after the three had a strange experience in a pub in Kelso. ‘So much life and death, so many stories. And they’re relatively unknown nowadays.’ With this piece, which tells a story they claim was told to them in that pub about young Prudencia Hart, who goes in search of the song of undoing, which she doesn’t realise belongs to the devil, the creative team have decided to create an experience reminiscent of the traditional, song and storytelling-based, ceilidh. Although it opens in the Tron Theatre’s Victoria Bar, the susbsequent tour venues are all traditional pubs.
‘The audience will come into a traditional pub, with musicians playing in the corner and a fire going, they’ll get their drinks, have a chat, and the story will evolve from there,’ says Wilson. ‘I think people will be surprised at just how theatrical the piece is, given the limitations of our setting.’ (Kirstin Innes)