New Scottish Drama at Home and in the German-Speaking Theatre

Michael Raab (Frankfurt) No More Beautiful Losers: New Scottish Drama at Home and in the German-Speaking Theatre About the reception of new Scottish plays in London, the dramatist David Greig writes that the critics there “feel most comfortable with Scottish work when it fits their understanding of Scots – violent and funny poor people who are slightly frightening. The softer voices, the poetic voices, and the experimental voices are met with bemusement, apathy or patronising disdain”. But, surprisingly, on a 2002 list of ten playwrights thought to be “the future of British theatre” by The Guardian four were Scots. Most of their works were staged at the Traverse Theatre, Scotland’s equivalent to the Royal Court. The establishment of a non-building-based new National Theatre for Scotland further boosted an already lively scene. In a small nation of five million people 600,000 regularly go to the theatre. Joyce McMillan, critic for The Scotsman, emphasizes the importance of devolution after the successful referendum in 1997 for the development of Scottish playwriting. In her opinion it gave young authors the confidence to say, “We’re cool enough, postmodern enough and mature enough not to be spending a lot of time thinking about being Scottish.” The essay examines the enormous formal breadth of new Scottish drama from its ‘annus mirabilis’ in 2002 until today, as well as its reception in the German-speaking theatre. Describes you as a pair of ‘Celtic lyricists’, you could sue the buggers. (John Byrne: Colquhoun and MacBryde) Joyce McMillan, critic for The Scotsman, emphasizes the importance of devolution after the successful referendum in 1997 for the development of Scottish playwriting. In her opinion it gave young authors the confidence to say: “[W]e’re cool enough, postmodern enough and mature enough not to be spending a lot of time thinking about being Scottish” (Cavendish). When the Guardian in 2002 published a list of the ten most promising British dramatists, no less than four of them were Scots: Zinnie Harris, Gregory Burke, David Harrower, and Douglas Maxwell (“Special report”). Fiachra Gibbons, Edinburgh-correspondent for the same paper, referred to “the most exciting generation of playwrights in a century” (Gibbons). Apart from Burke and Harrower she named Henry Adam and David Greig as its prime exponents. Greig himself mentions two vital characteristics of the new generation’s approach: Firstly, none of the authors shies away from experiment and collective processes of work and, secondly, their language is characterised by a certain poetic quality: 228 Michael Raab Of course, many English playwrights are structurally daring, and many have poetic voices, but most of them – Sarah Kane, Howard Barker, Martin Crimp, and, to some extent, even Caryl Churchill – have tended to be regarded as marginal. In Scottish theatre, the mainstream is, and has been for some time, poetic and experimental. Whether that be Liz Lochhead’s incredible reinvention of Scots in her Molière translations, which sold out the Lyceum, or Chris Hannan’s beautiful play Shining Souls, whose success in Scotland was never matched in London. Scottish theatre has traditionally not done well in London. Not in comparison, say, to the reception of Irish work. When plays have done well, Trainspotting and Gagarin Way, for example, they tend to be plays of underclass violence and comedy. This doesn’t diminish those plays, but it does suggest to me that the London critics feel most comfortable with Scottish work when it fits their understanding of Scots – violent and funny poor people who are slightly frightening. The softer voices, the poetic voices, and the experimental voices are met with bemusement, apathy or patronising disdain. (Greig, “Reaping”) Greig perfectly epitomizes the formal diversity of current Scottish writing for the theatre. He says about his own colourful mixture of texts: “It would be like Franz Ferdinand having followed up their debut with a country album and then a heavy metal track”(Millar).1 The reference to the band is no coincidence, as in post-devolutionary Scotland not only the novel, poetry and drama are flourishing but also Indie-Pop with Franz Ferdinand, Belle and Sebastian, or Mogwai. Compared to the Bay City Rollers this is progress indeed. At the same time Scottish artists are more European in outlook than many of their English colleagues. Greig states categorically: “[A]ny playwright who tells you they’re a nationalist is either a bad playwright or a bad nationalist” (Rebellato, Introduction). New Scottish writing in recent years also deservedly became more prominent in the German-speaking theatre, not only Greig, but also his colleagues Henry Adam, Gregory Burke, Zinnie Harris, David Harrower, Rona Munro, and Anthony Neilson. In the following I shall compare the reception of their work at home and over here. 1 On Greig’s main topics and his different formal approaches cf. Wallace. In October 2008 Greig indulged his musical interests in a collaboration with Gordon McIntyre, the singer and songwriter of Edinburgh band Ballboy, for Midsummer at the Traverse Theatre. His own acclaimed production of this romantic comedy was revived at the Fringe Festival in 2009 and transferred to the Soho Theatre in London in 2010. .

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