THEATRE | PREVIEWS & REVIEWS P R E V I E W
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POLITICAL THEATRE THE DRIFT Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Fri 11 & Sat 12 Oct
The Tron’s forthcoming season has a series of bold choices and a panoply of exciting voices: from Julia Croft, with her fierce feminist mash-up Power Ballad, to a meditation on post- communist society in Fallen Fruit, and Gary McNair’s unique Glaswegian interpretation of Ben Johnson’s The Alchemist. There is a real emphasis on dynamic work which challenges and provokes, and none more so than Hannah Lavery’s world premiere, The Drift. Directed by Eve Nicol, The Drift is poet, writer and performer Lavery’s lyrical, theatrical exploration of Scottish history. Presented by the National Theatre of Scotland, the piece is supported by Flint & Pitch and the Workers Theatre and commissioned with the Coalition of Racial Equality and Rights as part of Black History Month. Furious, heartfelt and moving, it interrogates ideas of place, family and loss, and is steeped in Lavery’s experiences of growing up ‘mixed’ in Scotland. With her roots in spoken word performance, she sees this
as a way to make ideas resonate within a theatrical context. ‘I suppose I think that poetry has always been such an important part of theatre that I have always felt to be part of a theatrical tradition’, she explains. ‘I think, however, poetry can offer layers of meaning and allow a similar space to emotionally connect to ideas and difficult themes’.
The initial inspiration for the piece was, she says, ‘a piece of seaglass, an Edinburgh close and my father’s fast walk, and that question, “where are you from?’’’ She believes that the political is often personal, and adds, ‘I think my play is rooted in grief, but I couldn’t say goodbye to my father, to understand him, without considering him as a black Scottish man, and that understanding was a political and historical understanding.’ (Lorna Irvine)
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TRUE LIFE STORY HOW NOT TO DROWN Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 11–Sat 14 Sep. Reviewed at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ●●●●● RECLAIMING HISTORY BLACK MEN WALKING Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 5–Sat 7 Sep; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 18–Sat 21 Sep, and touring
‘I was just a little kid’ says Dritan, the central figure in How Not To Drown, a co-production between ThickSkin and the Traverse Theatre, with Tron Theatre and Lawrence Batley Theatre. He’s an 11-year-old asylum seeker arriving in the UK after his homeland is ravaged by war. With most of the world ripping itself apart on faultlines of race and immigration, it’s frustrating that the expositional dump that opens How Not To Drown avoids any political details and settles for the blandest platitudes. One issue is that Dritan Kastrati plays himself; he’s fine as an actor, but
while the script constantly references his youth, Kastrati looks mature and conveys little vulnerability. Kastrati’s script, co-written with Nicola McCartney, evokes the experience of being smuggled from Kosovo to Albania to the UK via Italy and Belgium, but while the details might be true, they’re not always persuasive.
How Not To Drown does pack a lot of action into it’s 85 minute running time, but the twin targets of people-smuggling and social services aren’t meshed in any effective way. Vigorous playing and effective staging only go so far; addressing a subject this vital, and saying so little about it, smacks of box-ticking; the moral, that we should all do what we can for each other, feels like a minimal reward. (Eddie Harrison)
92 THE LIST 1 Sep–31 Oct 2019
Inspired by a real life men’s walking group in Cumbria, Black Men Walking takes a stroll through the Peak District, detouring through 2000 years of black history and arriving at a supernatural meeting with the spirits of their ancestors. With music from rapper Testament, and an unflinching look at a serious contemporary subject, this promises to be an uncompromising production.
Peter Huntley, interim executive producer at Eclipse, explains: ‘The group inspired the play, but it doesn’t tell their exact story. Hearing about how they use the walk to share their experience of living in Britain and how they connect to the landscape is something we explore in the production.’ From this starting point, Black Men Walking heads towards broader discussions of identity and location.
Huntley’s vision is a telling one that recognises a key problem with
contemporary theatre and balances the fictional with the factual. ‘It’s important that we use real events as we want to reflect the black British experience,’ he says. ‘We want people from those communities to see themselves represented on stage – something which doesn’t often happen in the theatre world.’
By reclaiming the landscape of the Peak District as part of black history, Black Men Walking challenges audiences to reconsider not only theatrical exclusion but also gaps in the historical record. (Gareth K Vile)