THIS year's Edinburgh Fringe seems set to be full of plays about the impact of war on the supposedly peaceful society back home so it's more than interesting, as the Festival tidal wave of creativity thunders towards our shores, to see two major summ
er productions in Scotland touched by the same powerful theme. George Bernard Shaw's strange, visionary drama Heartbreak House – now revived at Pitlochry in a new production by the theatre's director, John Durnin – was written during the First World War, although not performed until 1919, and it marks a huge departure from the ebullient, argumentative radicalism of Shaw's earlier plays.
In a setting openly influenced by Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Shaw assembles a group of characters at a slightly ramshackle country house, during the long twilight of the Edwardian era. All four of the main characters – the wrecked old owner of the house, Captain Shotover; his beautiful and charismatic daughter, Hesione Hushabye; her husband and "household pet" Hector, and her young but forceful guest, Ellie Dunn – treat with utter contempt all those who actually do anything in the world. They detest the very idea of Hesione's brother-in-law, Hastings Utterword, a dim but effective member of the British ruling class, and they treat Ellie's wealthy businessman suitor, Boss Mangan, as if he were barely human.
Instead, they indulge in weird and sophisticated sexual games, dabble in mysticism, and play with explosives; until at last, with a distant roll of thunder, "something happens" to shake their world, and perhaps to blow it away entirely.
What Shaw's play expresses, in other words, is a profound sense of the First World War as an apocalypse that would sweep away an old civilisation for good, replacing it with nothing but a death cult of war and destruction; and the piece remains a fascinating and chillingly familiar portrait of a hedonistic ruling class that has lost interest in the practical arts of government and wealth creation, and fallen half in love with the idea of its own extinction.
Despite one or two disappointing performances – and an occasional loss of pace and focus during the long second half – Durnin's thoughtful and good-looking production broadly does justice to the play's hugely challenging twists and turns. The beautiful Deirdre Davis of River City – stepping at short notice into the key role of Hesione – gives a dazzlingly charismatic and intelligent performance; Helen Miller is an icily brilliant Ellie, a fine specimen of youthful beauty frozen by disappointment in love into a hard-edged force of nature, bent on self-preservation. And if the rest of the cast sometimes seem a little unsure of where they're going, they keep right on to the end of the road; to that famous final scene where the great war machines darken the sky at last, and the Edwardian country house dream dies, right in front of our eyes.
In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing – revived by Gordon Barr and his increasingly confident Glasgow Rep company at the Botanics – a group of men returning from war at first seem like the most delightful companions to the family of an old and loyal country gentleman, Leonato. His pretty daughter Hero is soon engaged to the young and handsome Claudio; and his spirited niece Beatrice begins to warm to her bantering relationship with the more grizzled senior warrior, Benedick.
The brilliance of Shakespeare's play, though, lies in his profound sense of how the underlying values of the battlefield – the ambivalent and often abusive attitude to women, and the instant, unquestioning solidarity among male comrades that condones that abuse – soon begin to darken the romantic idyll. Gordon Barr's promenade production, offers no specially sharp interpretation of the text for modern times. But it does boast some exceptionally fine and intelligent verse-speaking, and an excellent, heart-touching Beatrice and Benedick in Beth Marshall and Stephen Clyde as well as a superb use of the garden to give us a sense of the life of the community in which this powerful near-tragedy unfolds, and in which – since it is a comedy – all wrongs are eventually righted.
Meanwhile, in the forest just south of Tobermory, Mull Theatre has just opened its brand new Druimfin production centre, set to become a key focus for the creation of touring theatre in the Highlands and Islands, Argyll and Bute. At a total cost of £600,000, the company has cleared the site, and erected a big, cheerful barn of a building featuring a large performance/rehearsal space, workshops, offices and dressing-rooms. Director Alasdair McCrone hopes they will soon be able to add some much-needed bar and foyer space, as well as an accommodation block for artists working on projects there.
The new building was launched last weekend with a cheerful co-produced revival of Right Lines' 2001 hit The Accidental Death Of An Accordionist, a hilarious ceilidh-cum-farce about the murderous internal politics of the 21st century Highland community of Glengirnie. A shade brief and shambolic in structure, but hugely amusing in detail, the show is set to visit the Edinburgh Fringe before a long autumn tour of the Highlands and north-east; so if you fancy a quick, bracing twirl round the country dance floor after a long day on the Fringe, then this Scottish village hall show par excellence could be just the late-night ticket for you.
• Heartbreak House is in repertoire at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 17 October. Much Ado About Nothing is at the Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, until 2 August. The Accidental Death Of An Accordionist is at Glenkinchie Distillery, Pencaitland, 29 July-2 August, St Bride's, Edinburgh, 4-23 August, and then touring until 20 September.
The full article contains 985 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
