Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969 Mark Brown Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969
A Revolution on Stage Mark Brown Glasgow, Scotland, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-98638-8 ISBN 978-3-319-98639-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98639-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954735
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations.
Cover illustration: ‘Knives in Hens’, Perth Theatre, dir. Lu Kemp. Photograph: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For my parents, Jane and Jim They buck you up, your Mum and Dad In memoriam:
Pauline Knowles December 16, 1967–October 17, 2018
An outstanding actor of her generation Scottish theatre is much the poorer for her passing “I always think of Scotland as a European country, and England as, unfortunately, not one.”1
Howard Barker
1 Howard Barker in Mark Brown (ed.), Howard Barker Interviews 1980–2010: Conversations in Catastrophe (Bristol: Intellect, 2011), p. 151. Acknowledgements
If the undertaking of a book such as this one proves anything, it is the wisdom of the title of the 2004 album by the experimental jazz trio Sonore, No One Ever Works Alone. Consequently, whilst all errors in the following work are my own, I have a number of people to thank for the many and various forms of assistance and support that made it possible for me to write this volume. Writing and research present considerable challenges to family life. I would like to offer my warmest thanks to the following members of my family for their love, patience and all manner of moral and practical sup- port: Nicole Brodie, Cara Brodie, Ethan Brodie, Jane Brown, Jim Brown and Barbara Ann Brown. For numerous forms of assistance, I acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the following members of staff, past and present, of Scottish theatre and arts organisations: Harriet Mould (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); Esther Batterham, Louise Dingwall, Jennifer Edelsten, Alison MacKinnon, Keren Nicol and Anna Stapleton (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow); Anna Docherty, Ann Monfries, Victoria Murray and Cian O’Siochain (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Joe Blythe, Clare McCormack, Laurie Sansom and Emma Schad (National Theatre of Scotland); Tony Reekie (Imaginate); Pam Dochard (Horsecross Arts, Perth); Joy Parkinson (Edinburgh International Festival); Lindsay Mitchell (Tron Theatre, Glasgow); Gemma Henry (Dundee Rep); Harris Brine and Greag Mac a’ tSaoir (National Galleries of Scotland); Fiona Sturgeon Shea (Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland); Ewan Downie (Company of Wolves). Thanks are due to the staff of the libraries of the University of Dundee, the University of
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Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh, and also the staff at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. I’m also grateful to Alice McCarney of the National Union of Journalists for her practical assistance. For various kinds of advice, information and support, thanks to Professor Joe Farrell (Emeritus Professor in Italian, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow); Dr Tea Kakhiani (founding director, Theatrical Art Centre, Tbilisi, Georgia); Dr Trish Reid and Dr James Reynolds (both of Kingston University, London); and Rupert Thomson (senior program- mer, Southbank Centre, London). For their advice on Hiberno-English: actors Pauline Goldsmith and Muireann Kelly; and Rachel O’Riordan (artistic director, Lyric Hammersmith). For bringing her sharp, documen- tary maker’s eye to my consideration of the cover design for the book, warm thanks to minha querida amiga Catarina Neves. This book has its origins in doctoral research at the University of Dundee (from which I am pleased and proud to have been awarded a PhD in June 2017). I am sincerely grateful to the School of Humanities at the University for providing me with not only an institution at which to pur- sue my research, but also the practical support required to do so. Thanks to the many members of staff within the School who have given me sup- port and advice, in both formal and informal contexts. Thanks to the esteemed actor Brian Cox, both for his generous engagement with my subject during a symposium within the School and for his stalwart support for Humanities at Dundee. Like so many students at Dundee, I was fortu- nate to enjoy the good counsel, insight and generosity of spirit of Dr Jim Stewart during the course of my research, and deeply saddened by his passing in 2016. Particular thanks are owed to Professor Mark Robson who, as second supervisor on my thesis, offered insightful questions, help- ful comments and very welcome support at important points during my research. I am grateful to Dr Keith Williams at the School for his patient and illuminating engagement with my research, both as a monitor of my work as it was being undertaken and as the internal examiner of the final thesis. Thanks to Professor Graham Saunders of the University of Birmingham who, as the external examiner of the thesis, engaged with my work with generosity, thoroughness and insight. I also owe a debt of grati- tude to Dr Daniel Cook at Dundee who, as chair of my examination com- mittee, offered perceptive and supportive commentary. A huge vote of thanks and heartfelt appreciation to Dr Jo George. As primary supervisor of my doctoral thesis, she was encouraging, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
accommodating and academically rigorous far above and beyond the call of duty. Her support was marvellous, from the very moment I first applied to undertake the doctorate at Dundee, right up to the completion of the work. No PhD thesis is ever going to be plain sailing, either in its research or in its writing. Nor was mine. Through the various ups and downs, Jo was extremely patient and supportive, but always keenly attuned to what was required academically, and I thank her most warmly. I am very grateful to all of the photographers who have so kindly and generously agreed to their work appearing in the book. In particular, I would like to thank Tommy Ga-Ken Wan, one of the most talented pho- tographers currently chronicling the Scottish theatre scene, for his gener- ous permission to use his superb photograph of Perth Theatre’s 2018 production of David Harrower’s play Knives in Hens on the cover of this book. My thanks, too, to actor Jessica Hardwick for her permission regard- ing the use of this image. I am also deeply grateful to Bernadine Hudson (sister-in-law of the late photographer Sean Hudson and executor of his estate) for granting per- mission to use his fine photograph of Communicado theatre company’s production of Athol Fugard’s A Place with the Pigs. My warm thanks to Annie Hudson, Mr Hudson’s niece, for facilitating the permission. I am, of course, hugely indebted to the ten theatremakers and directors who granted me the exclusive interviews which form the spine of this book. For so generously sharing their time, opinions and expertise I thank Giles Havergal, Dominic Hill, Gerry Mulgrew, David Greig, Zinnie Harris, David Harrower, Anthony Neilson, Stewart Laing, Vicky Featherstone and Jackie Wylie. For their considered opinions at a crucial stage in the completion of this book, warm appreciation to Zinnie Harris and Allan Radcliffe. For her inspiring teaching and her constant, supportive presence in my life, with- out which I very much doubt my passion for theatre or my career in the- atre criticism and theatre studies would have been possible, my love, thanks and enduring gratitude to my dear friend Jill Hallam. Finally, sincere appreciation to everyone at Palgrave Macmillan who was involved in the commissioning and publication of this volume. In particular, I am very grateful to my commissioning editor Tomas René, whose enthusiasm, expertise and advice have been invaluable, and to edi- torial assistant Vicky Bates, who has been wonderfully helpful, professional and patient in the face of my endless questions and revisions. Thank you all! Contents
1 Preface: Defining Our Terms 1 i. Auteurism and the Director’s Theatre 8 ii. Brecht: Theory and Practice 12 iii. Lecoq: Beyond Mimicry 17 iv. Barker: The Reluctant Modernist 19 v. A Note on Postmodernism 24 vi. Conclusion 27
2 Introduction 29 i. An Historical Note 30 ii. Two Strands: Modernism and Agitprop 38 iii. Aesthetic and Structural Players 40 iv. Some Other Players 44 v. Conclusion 46
3 “My Wife Glimpsed a Testicle!”: The Citizens Theatre Since 1969 51 i. The Havergal Revolution 51 ii. A Very British Rep: The Raison Interregnum 74 iii. Hill’s Restoration: A Classicist Takes the Reins 77
4 Communicado and “Popular Experimentalism” 91
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5 Interviews with Five Theatremakers 113 i. An Introduction to the Interviews 113 ii. David Greig 115 iii. Zinnie Harris 130 iv. David Harrower 142 v. Anthony Neilson 161 vi. Stewart Laing 175 vii. Notes on the Interviews 187
6 The National Theatre of Scotland: Mapping onto the Landscape 205
7 Conclusion: The Future of a Renaissance 225
Index 237 About the Author
Mark Brown is theatre critic of the Scottish national newspaper The Herald on Sunday (formerly the Sunday Herald; a post he has held since 2003) and Scottish critic of the UK national title the Daily Telegraph (since 2005). A professional theatre critic since 1994, he has written for many newspapers and magazines throughout the United Kingdom and internationally, including Scotland on Sunday, The Scotsman, The Herald, The Guardian, the Sunday Times, Sunday Business, The List, the New Statesman and the Toronto Star. In 1999 he received the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s Allen Wright Award for outstanding arts journal- ism by a young writer. Brown teaches regularly at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and has taught at the University of Strathclyde, the University of Dundee, the University of St Andrews, the University of the West of Scotland, the Scottish Universities’ International Summer School (at the University of Edinburgh) and the University of Lisbon. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including New Theatre Quarterly (UK), Maska (Slovenia), Theater der Zeit (Germany), Sinais de cena (Portugal), Svět a divadlo (Czech Republic), Critical Stages (webjournal of the International Association of Theatre Critics) and Prospero European Review (webjournal of the Prospero European theatre project). He is the editor of two books: Howard Barker Interviews 1980–2010: Conversations in Catastrophe and Oily Cart: All Sorts of Theatre for all Sorts of Kids. Book chapters include ‘The National Theatre of Scotland – a Theatre Without Walls’ (published in Farsi and English) in Nasrollah
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Ghaderi (ed.), About the Phenomenon of Theatre; ‘Barker, Criticism and the Philosophy of the “Art of Theatre”’ in David Ian Rabey and Sarah Goldingay (eds.), Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre; ‘Staging Barker at Scotland’s Conservatoire’ (in conversation with Hugh Hodgart) in James Reynolds and Andy W. Smith (eds.), Howard Barker’s Theatre; ‘Between Journalism and Art: The Location of Criticism in the Twenty-First Century’ in Duska Radosavljevic (ed.), Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes; and ‘Not so “In-Yer-Face”: Neilson and the Renaissance in Scottish Theatre’ in Trish Reid, The Theatre of Anthony Neilson. List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 Giles Havergal in Death in Venice (Citizens Theatre, 1999). (Photo: Alan Wylie) 69 Fig. 3.2 Adam Best and George Costigan in Crime and Punishment (Citizens Theatre, 2013). (Photo: Tim Morozzo) 80 Fig. 4.1 Gerda Stevenson and Gerry Mulgrew in A Place with the Pigs (Communicado, 1995). (Photo: Sean Hudson) 104 Fig. 5.1 Georgina Sowerby in The Cosmonaut’s Last Message (Tron Theatre, 1999). (Photo: Kevin Low) 116 Fig. 5.2 Kirsty McKay and Kevin Lennon in Further than the Furthest Thing (Dundee Rep, 2012). (Photo: Douglas McBride) 131 Fig. 5.3 Roger Allam and Jodhi May in Blackbird (EIF, 2005). (Photo: Richard Campbell) 143 Fig. 5.4 Christine Entwisle and Amanda Hadingue in The Wonderful World of Dissocia (EIF, 2004). (Photo: Douglas Robertson) 162 Fig. 5.5 George Anton in Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Untitled Projects, 2013). (Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) 177 Fig. 6.1 Kate Dickie and David McKay in Aalst (NTS, 2007). (Photo: Richard Campbell) 216
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