Theatre
PREVIEW NEW WORK GLASGOW GIRLS: THE MUSICAL Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 31 Oct–Sat 17 Nov
The dramatic story of the 21st century Glasgow Girls, the teenagers from Drumchapel who, in 2005, banded together to take on the immigration system when one of their friends was threatened with deportation, is an obvious one for the stage. Cora Bissett, whose 2010 production of Stef Smith’s Roadkill, about the horrors of sex trafficking, wowed audiences and embarrassed the authorities, is the go-to person to get such a controversial issue out there. Why, however, make it a musical?
Bissett has a good answer. ‘They have come from war
zones – a Somalian, a Roma from Kosovo, a Roma gypsy from Poland, a Kurd from Iraq – but they’re 15-year-old girls. There’s a great life force about them, they decide they want to do this campaign and it’s all guns blazing. They don’t intellectualise it, for them it’s simple: we want our mates back. ‘I don’t want to sit and preach to people,’ she continues. ‘I want it to jump off the stage and have that energy of action now. This needs to be a celebration of just being alive. It’s going to be a musical and I’m not going to apologise for it.’ To match the group’s makeup – the other three members
of the cast are their Scottish friends – the music is a ‘glorious big cultural clash’ of folk, reggae, hip hop and pop tunes. Playwright David Greig has written the text, which has not always met the real girls’ standards.
Roza Salih, the Kurdish member of the group, was
unimpressed by an early draft. ‘Have you,’ she asked one of the country’s leading dramatists, ‘written many plays?’
Greig’s light touch with the most serious of subjects, as seen in his recent show The Monster in the Hall, is evident here.
‘It’s a complex issue,’ says Bissett, ‘a lot of meaty politics but a lot of fun, a lot of beauty. But if you just want to watch this as a big old romp about seven feisty girls taking on the system, you can.’ (Anna Burnside)
PREVIEW DRAMA IRON Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 6–Sat 10 Nov; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 14–Sat 17 Nov PREVIEW NEW WORK WE HOPE THAT YOU’RE HAPPY (WHY WOULD WE LIE?) Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 8–Sat 10 Nov
PREVIEW THERAPEUTIC THEATRE INSIDE OUTSIDE IN OUR STRIDE Arches, Glasgow, Thu 25 & Fri 26 Oct
After 21 years as DS Jackie Reid on the TV series Taggart, now Blythe Duff is on the other side of the prison walls playing inmate Fay in Rona Munro’s drama Iron. Though, she insists, her choice of genre is nothing more than coincidence: ‘I wouldn’t say I’m particularly drawn to crime drama,’ she says.
In Iron, Fay is visited by her daughter for the first time in 15 years since being convicted of the murder of her partner. The result, says Duff, is less a gritty whodunnit and more an exploration of family ties.
‘It’s about the relationship between mother and daughter as much as anything,’ she says. ‘There are real moments of fondness between them.’ The show is produced by Borders-based
company Firebrand, and Duff says it was the company’s location that attracted her to the project when she was approached by director Richard Baron. ‘It’s an area of Scotland that has been neglected in the professional theatre touring circuit,’ she says. ‘I was keen to explore theatre again because I absolutely adore it, and I thought this was the project to do just that.’ (Jen Bowden)
112 THE LIST 18 Oct–15 Nov 2012
‘There’s an epidemic of apathy,’ explains Jess Latowicki, one half of Made In China Theatre, along with co-writer Tim Cowbury. ‘We think we’re feeling something, but you try to do so much and experience so much that you end up just being apathetic.’ She’s referring to their latest piece, We Hope That You’re Happy (Why Would We Lie?), an inquisitive, witty piece of theatre that bridges the gap between performance art and playwriting. The production, starring Latowicki and Christopher Brett Bailey, explores the idea that modern society is so overwhelmed with information and experiences that our capacity for caring has decreased enormously. ‘We are consistently given information and you
never have time to switch off and just be,’ she says. ‘We spend our lives taking things in and discarding them. In trying to feel something you don’t end up feeling anything.’ Despite the serious theme, Latowicki insists the show is not without humour. ‘We don’t want to shove anything down anyone’s throat. Using humour is a good way to get people to engage. If anything’s too heavy, people aren’t going to listen.’ (Kirstyn Smith)
Solar Bear theatre company’s Therapeutic Theatre strand was created five years ago for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, and it’s now developed into a process of engagement for its participants which culminates in a show at the festival. Although there are many elements to Solar Bear’s work – aimed at people who can’t easily engage with theatre, it’s best known for its work with the deaf community – Therapeutic Theatre is specifically for those with mental health difficulties. ‘First the group comes together and has fun
through drama games and exercises,’ says coordinator Emma Hagen, describing the process of creating the performance. ‘The second stage explores people’s own life experience in complete confidence, which can be celebratory or more difficult and challenging, and the third involves devising that material into a theatre production, which this year is Inside Outside In Our Stride.’ The theme this year relates both to people’s internal feelings and how much of them they reveal to the outside world, and the physical element of staying within the home or a place of sanctuary versus the sense of isolation this can cause. (David Pollock)
Y H P R U M N O M S © O T O H P
I
L L E B P M A C D R A H C R © O T O H P
I