Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Tron Theatre, Glasgow.

Review: Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Tron Theatre, Glasgow. October 2017

Just writing down the date at the heading of this piece, "October 2017", is a reminder that this month marks the centenary of the October Revolution. One hundred years ago the workers and peasants of Russia, led by the Bolsheviks, overthrew the Tsarist state and established the "dictatorship of the proletariat".  Though he died in 1881, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's works demonstrate the tumult of ideas and debate that were going on in 19th century Russia. I find it surprising that there has been very little reflection or analysis in the arts or media about the events in Russia of that time. 

With that in mind I came to see the Tron Theatre Company revive the 1981 dramatisation of Dostoyevsky's most famous book, The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky's final novel is often thought of as his masterpiece, a lifetime of thought distilled into 900 pages of psychological angst. The author's own life was no less dramatic than his novels. His early belief in utopian socialism, led to the terror of a mock execution, then banishment to Siberia. He returned to society with his religious beliefs reinforced and his characters often try, often fail, to live the nihilistic or pious ideals that many people of his time believed or feigned. He was also deeply affected by epilepsy, a condition practically untreatable in his time, that often gave him a feeling of profuse calm before a seizure, but then left him drained for weeks afterwards. Epileptics often feature in his stories, most notably Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. In Karamazov the seizures of the fourth, illegitimate brother, Smerdyakov, feature prominently.

The other three Brothers Karamazov (Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha) have all been neglected by their depraved, wealthy father. Ivan is a revolutionary intellectual whose nihilistic belief, like Raskolnikov, that there is no God and "all is permitted" is tested when someone takes him at his word. Alyosha is a pious, Christ-like figure, who follows the religious teachings of the elderly monk Zosima and tries to put his Christian love into practice. Dmitry is a passionate and hedonistic man, who competes with his father for the love of Grushenka. When their father is murdered, circumstantial evidence points the finger of blame at Dmitry. 

I have written before about Dostoyevsky, and I love reading his meaty books. However Karamazov is not one of my favourites. As ever Dostoyevsky sets out the debate between different ideals before you and gives equal weight to all sides. In this instance few readers get to the end of the book and feel, like the narrator, that Alyosha is the hero of the story. I was inevitably rooting for Ivan, who is driven slowly mad by the guilt he feels for advocating free choice to others. 

So how do you cram 900 pages on the moral disintegration of society into a 2 hour play with four actors? 

On a stark stage, with an earthen floor, the four actors perform as the brothers, taking it in turns to don a fur coat or cloak to become their father Fyodor Karamazov, the devil, Zosima or the Grand Inquisitor of Ivan's poem. Whether the stage is meant to represent a crucible or a gladiatorial arena the performers do at times struggle to clamber clumsily around it, and the long speeches used to convey the arguments from the book are also handled incredibly clumsily. As they launch into another lengthy elucidation of a theory, it comes over like a child reading a poem learned verbatim at school. All the words are there, but the meaning and emotion is lost. 

The performers try their hardest. Thierry Mabonga as Dmitry has an energy that would make you want to spend time in his company, Tom England's Alyosha is a suitably young naive. Sean Biggerstaff makes the most of Ivan's inner turmoil, whilst Mark Brailsford's hammy Smerdyakov leans too much towards caricature to carry any of the malevolence of the book's character. Act 1 is heavy going at times, and there were several people in the audience around us who did not bother with the second half, which was a shame, as things picked up in Act 2. The courtroom scenes allow the arguments of the story to be made in a less contrived manner. The occasional a cappella singing was rather more dystonic than was maybe intended, and did not create any atmosphere of a Russian Orthodox polyphonic chanting, but rather jarred. 

Dostoyevsky can be successfully brought to the stage, as the Citizens Theatre showed with last year's Crime and Punishment. This Brothers Karamazov as it is performed here, does not wrestle with any of the ideas or philosophy in the novel. The parricide could be presented as the people overthrowing the Tsar or any other dictator and dealing with the consequences. Or you could focus on Ivan, who has dreamy ideals of being able to do whatever he wants, but then is faced with someone acting upon these ideals. The resonances of these notions in the October Revolution, or in nationalist debates in Europe can easily be found, but not in this rendering of the story. The actors don't convey any meaning in their long, expositional speeches, they just batter through the words in the script. Maybe taken at a slower pace, the same script read over an extra hour, it would have room to breathe, but perhaps I am clutching at straws. Sean Biggerstaff has played alongside Alan Rickman in several of the Harry Potter films, and it was Alan Rickman who played Ivan in the original 1981 production. This thought did leave me feeling rather envious of those who saw the play back then.

Edinburgh. One Day at the Festivals.

Edinburgh Festival Reviews

Every year I try to have a quick run around as much as I can in a day at the Edinburgh festivals. Every year I underestimate how long it will take me to get from venue to venue when the pavements are all choc-a-bloc with people dragging wheelie suitcases or trying to hand out flyers. So as usual I tried to squeeze in too much.

Here are some quick reviews of the shows that I managed to catch, in case you are planning to take in a couple.

Thoughtful

Issues of refugees are being discussed in several shows at the Fringe this year. The Sleeper (by Henry C. Krempels in a pokey space in the top floor of the Jury's Inn Hotel) starts with the testimony of real Syrian refugees. An Englishwoman on an overnight train across Europe returns from the bathroom to find "a pair of eyes" in her couchette. Reporting it to a world-weary staff member on the train he asks her to decide if she wants him to deal with it. They replay the confrontation, to see what choices we can all make in such a situation. The person who seems powerless to determine her fate is Amena, whose voice we struggle to listen to in all this (well played by Aya Daghem with a startled air of confusion). A quick wake up call to your brain in its 10.30am slot in the fringe programme. (Their shows have a later 11.40am time for the remainder of the run).

Angry 

It is difficult doing a stand-up show at noon, when your more sobre audience requires a bit more work to loosen them up, but Eleanor Morton at The Stand gives it a good go. In a show titled Angry Young Woman, she is angry about most things. Particular ire is aimed at the everyday sexism in our world which, funnily enough, female comedians (or comediennes if you prefer) are exposed to on and off stage. It would be good to see more of her, but as TV panel shows already meet their one woman per show quota, you probably won't.

Also apparently very angry is Lucy Porter, with her show Choose Your Battles at the Pleasance Courtyard. However it is the middle-class rage of losing the keys for the Volvo that is the subject of her show. Where Eleanor Morton was earlier talking about faking it by going about on public transport with a yoga mat prominently displayed under her arm, Lucy Porter was talking about her yoga classes. All a bit cosy.

Classy

The one name that jumped out at me when I saw the programme for this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, was James Kelman's. With a new collection of short stories released this month (That Was A Shiver available now - go buy it at your local bookshops). He was on top form, and I was delighted that instead of reading from his new book he decided to talk to us about his thoughts on literature in general and the position of artists in Scotland today. TV's Brian Taylor was a good host, reflecting on his university studies of Descartes as they talked. Kelman talked about his own learning, starting from the Realism of Zola and moving on to Camus, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, and so it goes on. A curious mind exploring his world, and finding his voice in trying to express the subjective experience of his characters. Nobody else in Scottish (or British) literature comes close to this existential ventriloquism. Good painters start by first observing people and the world around them, and Kelman is a master of his art because of his ability to observe, and to listen, to people.

I bought a ticket for The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk as it is based on paintings I like by Marc Chagall, who often pictures himself and his wife floating over the town. Thinking of Chagall's paintings gives me terrible flashbacks, as my then 2 year old daughter all but managed to crash straight through a 10 foot painting of his when we visited the Musée National Marc Chagall. Thankfully no damage was done to either her or the painting. The play, by Kneehigh theatre company, is a two-header with Marc Antolin as Chagall and Audrey Brisson as his wife Bella, accompanied by two musicians. The fantastic choreography and Marc Antolin's floppy-haired physical similarity to Chagall does make the paintings appear before your eyes. Clever stagecraft throughout manages to carry a love story and a turbulent historical period, without distracting from the storytelling. A lovely way to spend an hour and a half.

Over the Town 1918 by Marc Chagall

Topical

Written by Sabrina Mahfouz (whose essay was one of the stand out's in the excellent book The Good Immigrant) and Hollie McNish, the play Offside benefits from the poetry that both writers excel at, with a rhythm and beat to the script that matches the muscular physicality of the story. On stage Daphne Kouma, Tanya-Loretta Dee and Jessica Butcher tell the real stories of Emma Clarke, a black footballer who played for Scotland in the 1890s and of Lily Parr from the 1920s. Flicking back and forwards to the current day the play tackles issues of prejudice, sexism, mental health, intrusive journalism, body image matters and more, but manages to stay on track by having a story that you want to follow weaving through all of this. The melodrama that real football can generate sometimes translates badly to film or theatre, but my problem  was that Emma Clarke's life sounds so interesting that I wanted to hear more about her, playing in Glasgow in the 1890s, than the imagined England players of the modern phase of the play. If it's true drama that you area after, the Scottish Women's Premier League is about to kick off again after a short hiatus for the Euros there. Glasgow City FC's next home game is against Hamilton Accies on Sunday 3rd September.

Goalkeeper Emma Clarke, in the back row here of Mrs Graham's XI in 1895

Oddity

Described as an "experimental opera" and written by Roddy Bottum, keyboardist with Faith No More, I found Sasquatch: The Opera a lot of fun. As a rock-opera the live music from Bottum himself on keyboards, accompanied by electronic beats, timpani drums and brass was very impressive, and far more dramatic than the story playing out in front of the musicians. I did not ever expect to see an opera where a drug-addled hill-billy family con tourists with their fake Sasquatch, before the chained up daughter of the family flees into the woods and falls in love with the real beast, who it turns out is a real pussycat with a falsetto voice. The surprising chorus working the forest meth lab in the second half of the story help hunt down the beast and...well you can go and see it if you want to find out what happens. Bass-baritone singer Joe Chappel should have his own show on at the fringe whilst he is here, as he has a great voice. It's a strange hotchpotch of ideas and maybe needs stronger direction and better acting to knock the story into shape, but if you want entertained you should see it now in case it gets the rough edges knocked off of it.

Stuffy

Part of the official Edinburgh International Festival, Had We Never, Robert Burns: Chains and Slavery, was a late night concert performed in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The museum currently has two fascinating exhibits that offer a dialogue between Robert Burns's idealised character as demonstrated by the white marble statue of him in the main hall here, and the truer, more flawed character, who was on the verge of heading to Jamaica to work on the plantations before his poetry took off. Douglas Gordon has copied the white marble statue, in black marble, and as a literal iconoclast, has thrown its broken parts onto the hall floor at the feet of Burns. Graham Fagen has a video installation of reggae singer Ghetto Priest singing a new version of Burns's The Slave's Lament  by composer Sally Beamish.

Reflecting on these works an evening of Burns's poems and songs was promised, with new works by Jackie Kay and a live performance by Ghetto Priest and musicians from the Scottish Ensemble. It was a terribly Edinburgh affair, stilted and old fashioned. Instead of trying to see Burns differently much of it was based around old fashioned, churchy performances of Burns's works from bass singer Brian Bannatyne-Scott and counter-tenor David James. Away from the Caribbean angle, the international works were a bit dry. I like Avro Part's version of My heart is in the Highland's but like much of his work it feels very religious and churchy. I know the Shostakovich Burns stuff in Russian as I heard many earnest renditions of them at the Scotland-USSR Friendship Society, but again that took me to the late 1970s/ early 1980s. Jackie Kay brought fresher moments with her playful poems on Douglas Gordon's sculpture and on Burns, such as Resume The Plough, where she spoke of Burns getting "Awa frae polite society/ And Edinburgh literary soirees". I bet she was thinking the same thing. I have never been to a Jackie Kay reading which wasn't filled with laughter and applause and I have never, ever heard such a fussy rendition of A Man's A Man, in which I seemed to be the only person wanting to join in. All in all it was a very strange programme.

I was maybe getting a bit tired by midnight when it finished, but I was now ready to go back to Glasgow, where audiences are a bit more bawdy.

The Submarine Time Machine.

Theatre review - National Theatre of Scotland - The Submarine Time Machine

June 2017 - National Theatre of Scotland Production on the Forth and Clyde Canal, Glasgow

Since in was established in 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland has made a virtue out of being a theatre company not based in any theatre. This has led to a variety of imaginative and site-specific productions, and ensures that they endeavour to entertain all of the nation. "Theatre without walls" as they at times describe it. 

After a decade of renting storage and administrative space, National Theatre of Scotland has recently opened their new headquarters at Rockvilla, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal. (For more on the area see this blogpost on Possilpark, Lambhill, Cadder and Ruchill). With Glasgow Sculpture Studios in the nearby Whisky Bond building, and Scottish Opera and the Royal Conservatoire having premises nearby, this former industrial area is being actively rebuilt as a cultural hub. 

Submarine Time Machine production

To mark the occasion they produced a weekend of performances along and on the canal, riffing on the history (real and imagined) of the area. Under the banner "Submarine Time Machine" a promenade along the canal banks from Firhill Basin to Speirs Wharf could take in twelve to thirteen 10 minute acts, starting or ending with the aforementioned submarine. This follows the curious tale of a mini-submarine that passed through Maryhill in 1952, travelling along the canal to Rosyth to be de-commissioned. For the purposes of the entertainment a barge had been lovingly rigged up as the submarine, and could take the audience on a short, imagined trip. 

A mini-submarine in 1952, passing through Maryhill on the Forth and Clyde Canal

The Submarine Time Machine at the Whisky Bond building 2017

I meandered between the various performers with my daughter and could dip in and out as we fancied, others came along with their dogs, in groups or alone. Usually performed in rhyming couplets some acts were more successful than others, but were always engaging and imaginative. 

We had a choir accompanying a sad story of a deer trapped upon the frozen canal, a solo performer (who was my daughter's favourite) telling us about a fairy who had lost her wings, and at Firhill stadium a video of a promising young troup of young artisans re-enacting Partick Thistle's famous victory over Celtic in the 1971 League Cup Final. In Firhill, the pie stand was open for snacks, and you could either watch a video of the re-enactment, or you could sit in the empty stands and listen to the commentary of it all. I was in attendance at the match when the theatre company filmed it at half-time. They were unfortunate that Partick Thistle were 5-0 down in an end of season game against Celtic at the point the fan-actors emerged from the tunnel. On another day, with a different score unfolding, the crowd would maybe have been in a more light-hearted mood and entered into the spirit of it a bit more enthusiastically. Seeing it as part of this production though, I have to say I was impressed with how they managed to pull it all together. 

Firhill Stadium, one of the canal-side venues used

Further along, those performing the piece about the boy who pulled the plug out of the canal deserve special mention for their energetic efforts. The other piece I liked was the story of the Incredible Glesga Doo, alongside the pigeon loft near Firhill. 

The boy who pulled the plug out 

Pigeon play

When I lived in Maryhill I looked down onto the canal from my bedroom window, and I could watch people crossing the bridge over it late at night on unsteady legs. In those days, before it was cleaned out and made navigable again, it was full of discarded washing machines and cars. This weekend it was filled with tall tales, dance, songs, performance, wartime reminiscence and a general farrago of nonsense which made for a very enjoyable two hours spent walking along the canal. 

If you want to come back to see yet more dramatic performances along the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal remember that you don't need to wait for National Theatre of Scotland to organise it. The football season starts on the 5th of August. 

Star Trek-like uniforms for future visitors

The next performance of "Partick Thistle 4 Celtic 1"? Well, Celtic visit Firhill on 12th August 2017, come along and see what happens. Under-16s go free, entertainment often available.

Partick Thistle 4 Celtic 1. Next performance?

Daphne Oram's Wonderful World of Sound. Tron Theatre. Review

Daphne Oram's Wonderful World of Sound. Tron Theatre, Glasgow. May 2017

The theme of the Tron Theatre's May Festo season this year is "work inspired by experiments in music and sound". Surely nobody exemplifies that more than Daphne Oram, pioneer of electronic music.

Daphne Oram's Wonderful World Of Sound by Blood Of The Young

She is known as the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and was its first studio manager, but left after a year, frustrated by the lack of creative freedom she had in her role, and the stifled by BBC attitudes. She set up her own studio and continued electronic composition, commercial work, concrete experiments and created sounds using her Oramics "drawn sound" machine. This machine, a proto-synthesiser, and her ideas that it would let people with no musical training create sounds and music is nowadays an everyday part of music making. Whereas now a simple synthesiser, loop pedal or app can allow anyone to make electronic music, in order to make these sounds in her day she first had to construct the machinery, which is now housed in the Science Museum, London. The video below gives you a glimpse of her machine in action.

The play Daphne Oram's Wonderful World of Sound is on at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow this week before touring. It is produced by Glasgow based company Blood of the Young and was written by their artistic director, Paul Brotherston alongside Isobel McArthur, who also plays Daphne Oram in the play. Appropriately it mixes acting with music, live scored by musician and sound artist Anneke Kampman. She was previously part of Scottish band Conquering Animal Sounds, and also performed at the Tectonics music festival in Glasgow in 2016. The music and sound effects here create a perfect atmosphere for the actors to inhabit.

Agnes Oram at work

Daphne Oram's character steps out from the play to narrate her life story to us, in plummy Jeeves and Wooster tones, which if you listen to any recordings of her talking about her music is a pretty good impersonation of her actual voice. The contemporary photographs of her working resemble a mad scientist dwarfed by banks of machines, and it is her curiosity and desire to experiment and create something with her music that shines through in the play. Surrounded by patronising, tweed-clad BBC types and institutional sexism she strives to innovate and be creative. The ensemble cast and clever set designs take us from her family home, through the BBC years to her rural retirement. She was a unique force, whether creating sci-fi sound effects, Anchor butter adverts or developing her own Oramics theories on sound and it is great to see her life recorded here so splendidly. The ensemble cast mix physical theatre with humour. Isobel McArthur's Daphne Oram is driven and enthusiastic, with clouds always on the horizon as she strives to plough her own furrow.

Daphne Oram died in 2003, at the age of 77, but her legacy seems to be growing with time, with women often to the fore in experimental music and sound art a new award was this week announced. The Daphne Oram Award will celebrate women innovators in sound and music.

A Play, A Pie and A Pint. - Jocky Wilson Said.

Jocky Wilson Said. Oran Mor, Glasgow. March 2017

Jocky Wilson Said by Jane Livingstone and Jonathon Cairney. Theatre review.

When Dexy's Midnight Runners appeared on Top of the Pops in 1982 playing their version of the Van Morrison song "Jackie Wilson Said" instead of a picture of soul legend Jackie Wilson, behind them on stage was a large picture of Fife's own world darts champion, Jocky Wilson. This is often cited as a famous television mistake, but the truth is more mundane and it was actually done on purpose as a joke, with Jocky Wilson a very well-kent face at the time. Now he is maybe more well known for that incident than for his darts playing. 

He looked an unlikely sporting champion, which was a big reason that people warmed to him. Short, overweight, toothless, and smoking and drinking between throws, he had the appearance of the archetypal bloke from the pub darts team who goes on to be champion of the world. He did that twice, in 1982 and 1989, in the days before there were two rival darts championships.

Jocky Wilson

This week's play at Oran Mor's A Play, A Pie and A Pint series, twists the Dexy's song title to present a monologue with Grant O'Rourke as Jocky Wilson. It is based on an episode in his life in the days before he was world champion and finds him stranded in the Nevada desert, 180 mile (get it?) from a competition in Las Vegas he should be at. Trying to hitch a lift he chats to "Spike", a roadside cactus and brings out fascinating stories from his early life that were all new to me. With a glass half full attitude he looks back to his early days in an orphanage with his brother, his previous work including days in the Seafield Colliery and his time spent in Kirkcaldy's Lister Bar, where he first took up darts. His arguments with darts officials, temporary ban for punching one of them, and the grief his Argentinian wife Malvina got at the time of the Falklands War also add to his colourful past which I knew nothing about. 

Grant O'Rourke, who acts in TV series Outlander, makes a good Jocky Wilson, and also does decent impersonations of other characters, including a haughty Eric Bristow. Some of the best lines are direct lifts from Jocky Wilson's autobiography, such as

"I can manage just about anything with my gums. I can chew a steak provided it's well done. I can even eat apples. Great Yarmouth rock and nuts are the only things that defeat me"

The play gives you a rounded picture of Scotland's first ever darts world champion, without the later downward arc his life took. A man fondly remembered by many, and in his home town also with a wee display in his honour in Kirkcaldy Galleries. 

Karine Polwart. Wind Resistance. Celtic Connection 2017

Karine Polwart. Wind Resistance. Tron Theatre, January 2017. Review

Karine Polwart's Wind Resistance was first performed at the Edinburgh International Festival last year, and now finds its way to Glasgow as part of this year's Celtic Connections festival.
I had tried and failed to get tickets for it last year so was pleased to see it being revived.

Written and performed by Karine Polwart, with input from David Greig and directed by Wils Wilson, Wind Resistance is a mixture of story-telling, folklore, traditional, and original songs all woven together around the musicality of Karine Polwart's voice. Twenty four hours on I am still digesting all that it contained.

The starting point is Fala Moor in Midlothian, close to where Karine Polwart lives. From describing the vista that opens up in front of you there, to crouching down and inspecting the smallest moss over the course of 90 minutes she explores the inter-connectedness of land, people and society. The mixture of personal memories and the story of a couple who lived 100 years earlier on a farm close to where Karine Polwart now lives give a humane heart to the piece. The songs give the whole story a feeling that we are sitting around a campfire on the hillside hearing secrets and tales in the oral tradition, passed on to us.

The skein of pink footed geese that arrive on the moor in autumn from Greenland are the visible proof of the benefits we can all gain by sharing the load. I laughed as that led us into an excuse to recall the Aberdeen's 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup winning team, as then manager Alex Ferguson is a big fan of that metaphor. Karine's enthusiasm for that team was shared by non-Old Firm supporting classmates of mine in 1983 who started following Aberdeen and Dundee United around that time (I stuck with Partick Thistle - whose laughing now?).

It is also a story about womanhood and childbirth that manages to avoid any tired "mother Earth" tropes. The warnings about the current atomisation of the health service are clear. It is a humane piece and focused on the benefits we all get from society pulling together, looking after our wild sites and each other. Like the geese I was lucky enough to be in Greenland recently, where the effects of global warming are visible in front of your eyes, and not acting is clearly no longer an option.

A timely warning against isolation and individualism. If you get the opportunity to see it, I would encourage you to grab it (and take a hankie).

Mark Thomas - The Red Shed.

Mark Thomas - The Red Shed. Tron Theatre, Glasgow. October 2106. Review

A stage show about a Labour Club in Yorkshire? Strange as it may seem Mark Thomas's skill as a story-teller and performer makes this unlikely topic an enjoyable and moving tribute to neglected working class history.

Photo by Tracey Moberly from Mark Thomas website

The Red Shed is a 47 foot long red wooden shed in Wakefield, a working people's club which celebrated it's 50th anniversary earlier this year. Mark Thomas first went there as a drama student from a Yorkshire college and has returned many times since. When planning a celebration of the club's 50th anniversary Mark had recalled how he credited his activism with the 1980s miners' strike with his political awakening. In interviews he has recounted joining a miners' march back to work, with local school children singing to them as they headed down the street. Is this just a story that he has made real by repetition or, as nobody else can recall it is he mis-remembering it, making it true by repetition?

Before the performance Mark approached several members of the audience, looking for volunteers to join him on stage. I declined I'm afraid, and you can make your own allegory there about people either choosing to become actively involved in political action or preferring to be supportive, inactive voyeurs in our civic age. He introduces us to many of the stalwarts who have helped run the place, and the campaigns organised from there. The six audience volunteers hold up masks to act as the participants in this story.

In investigating the veracity of his early memory, we explore the untold histories of working people. I found this a meaty, moving and angry piece of theatre. He is an engaging raconteur. If you are going to put yourself forward as one of his volunteers on the night I would suggest a wee visit to the bathroom before you start, as certainly one of the players on stage on our night appeared to have maybe overdone it a bit at the bar before getting up there.

One reason that I write this blog, particularly the sections on local Glasgow history, is because there are huge swathes of information and stories out there that we poorly recall. There are stories that my granny used to tell me about, stories of immigrants arriving in our city, periods of unemployment and struggle, things worthy of celebrating, remembering and learning from. If we don't get to remember the past we will go along allowing the same mistakes to be made. History isn't created by the actions of kings and queens, but by ordinary men and women.

The Suppliant Women. Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh , October 2016. Review

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. A New Version by David Greig



Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on a sunny October night

As the new Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, David Greig has begun his stint in this role by creating a new version of an ancient Greek play. Written 2500 years ago by Aeschylus, it is one of the world's oldest plays and yet the subject is chillingly contemporary. In fact many of the lines from the original play (which I recently wrote about here) fit perfectly in describing our world today.

Edinburgh Castle in October

On a crisp autumnal night in October we made our way through from Glasgow to the Athens of the North to see The Suppliant Women. Aeschylus' play is the first part of a tetralogy telling the story of The Danaids, a tale well known to the audiences of Athens that first saw it performed in around 470BCE. The Suppliant Women is the only surviving part of Aeschylus' Danaid Tetralogy. It tells of the 50 daughters of Danaus, fleeing across the sea from near Syria, escaping from forced marriage to their cousins, the sons of Aegyptus. They land in Greece at Argos and seek asylum. Although they may look foreign, they tell the people there of how they are descendants of the Argive heifer goddess Io, basically "we're all Jock Tamson's bairns".

Theatre of Dionysos, Athens

The play was first performed in the theatre of Dionysos in Athens, where the wealthy sponsors of the plays would carry out a libation before it began. This is a tradition which has been resurrected for The Suppliant Women, with different MPs and MSPs this week having performed the libation each night on stage at the opening of the play. We were told where the funding for our play came from, and the gods are offered an offering of wine (Dionysos was not just the god of theatre). It is a smart reminder of where the funding for theatre such as this comes from (largely the people, the demos, as it turns out). In that respect they are missing a trick in fully achieving the 30p in each £10 funding provided from the theatre bar by running it as a 90 minute piece with no interval, as I missed the chance to chip in an extra £4 for a wee tub of ice cream. We are asked to see if we can see anything of our current times reflected in the mirror of this old piece of theatre.

Theatre at Epidavros

With ancient paintings of theatre performances and Aeschylus' words themselves really all we have now to go on, what did ancient Greek theatre actually look and sound like? When you look at the scale of the theatre of Epidavros, despite its famous acoustics, it is hard not to imagine that music and a raised chorus of voices would be required to lift the sound to the cheap seats at the back. The Suppliant Women is unusual because the chorus here plays a large part in the story as a character. In David Greig's telling of the story they set the mood from the moment they stride on stage, rhythmically beating out the metre with their feet.

The stage is stripped back and open. The play is set in ancient times. The modern, casual dress of the chorus keeps us in the present. The chorus themselves is made up of local volunteers with professional actors Gemma May, Omar Ebrahim and Oscar Batterham taking the lead parts. The chorus though, the suppliant women themselves, are a fantastically well choreographed, ebbing and flow, huddling and scattering ensemble. The fact that the asylum seekers are here drawn from our local community emphasises the feeling that they are our kin. Written by David Greig, directed by Ramin Gray and with music composed by John Browne, the team behind The Suppliant Women have already worked together successfully with The Events. When that play toured it triumphantly used local choirs on stage as part of the piece, and with the Suppliant Women again local people will be used. The chorus in Edinburgh will be replaced by people of Belfast and Liverpool when the play moves on.

The rhythm that started with the marching feet carries on through the play in the pulse of the language and John Browne's music, played by two musicians. I am no expert of ancient music but it feels and sounds true, equally Eastern and at times like a mournful Celtic keening. Particular credit must go to the Aulos player whose playing was very evocative.

Aulos player from Ancient Greece

When the women are met by King Pelasgus of Argos (Oscar Batterham) he is suspicious of these foreigners and the troubles that they might bring. Sharply dressed and with a politicians measured assessment he decides to put it to the people of Argos to decide - the word democracy is first found in Aeschylus' writing. It falls to a man, their father to make their case in the city, whilst the women still fearing violence against them from men stay in the safety of the holy temple they have come to. Their father warns them that people will fear them, they should "always be modest", "defer" to people, keep your head down and don't cause trouble.

Only this week the people of Hungary were asked to vote in a referendum on whether asylum seekers should be allowed into their country. Whilst 98% of Hungarians who voted stated that they would not allow refugees entry to their country, most people in the country managed to scupper the vote by not participating. I don't need to labour the point that the words from 2500 years ago seem again and again to echo to our times. Even when the people of Argos vote overwhelmingly to welcome these people in need (and more than that, to fight to defend them if required) dark clouds (or sails) are on the horizon and the men from their homeland arrive to drag them back by force. The older women of Argos welcome the women, but with the coda that they should not scorn Aphrodite but welcome men and lust as that is the way of things. The suppliant women display a more independent streak, as they leave the stage with their exiting ode (Exodus).

In a week where Theresa May's Conservative party asks employers to report foreign workers, overseas doctors are being told they are no longer welcome and there will be a crackdown on overseas students and visas, it is clear that Danaus' warning to his daughters that people fear foreigners is as resonant today as it was for the original audiences. The people of Argos are shown to have done the right thing in the play, aware of the potential consequences. We clearly still need taught this lesson.

On top of the language, words like drama, democracy and exodus that came from the Ancient Greeks, I am astounded at the modern parallels being found in the stories of ancient plays of Aeschylus. Recently the three plays of The Orestiae was retold (as This Restless House) by the Citizen's Theatre. Working with a smaller fragment of source material The Suppliant Woman packs a mighty punch. It is also the nearest that I have been to encountering what the ancient Athenians maybe saw. Stripped of marble columns and chiffony robes, the words are allowed to sing out. If the aim of David Greig's time at the Lyceum is to bring poetry and community into the theatre, he is off to a flying start.

I would really encourage you to go and get a ticket for this if you get the chance.

As it is national poetry day today, I will finish with a short poem from a modern Greek poet and playwright - Stamatis Polenakis, called Elegy.

"Nothing, not even the drowning of a child, 

stops the perpetual motion of the world. 

I know that today or yesterday some child drowned; 

a child who drowned today or yesterday 

is nothing - an inanimate puppet 

in the hands of God, a short motionless poem 

in the perpetual motion of the world."

Edinburgh Festival 2016 - Edinburgh Festival Fringe Theatre

Edinburgh Fringe 2016  - Theatre

I've come all the way to Edinburgh and the first two things that I saw were set in a Glasgow school and a Glasgow night club toilet. Quick reviews of a few of the theatre performances I saw at this years Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Glasgow Girls - Assembly Hall ****

Produced by National Theatre of Scotland Glasgow Girls, by David Greig and Cora Bissett, is based on the story of seven Glasgow school friends from Drumchapel who stood together in 2005 when their classmate and her family, seeking asylum in Scotland, were taken from their home to be forcefully deported. Based upon true events the song-filled play has been touring since 2012 but I have only now caught up with it. It is being shown in the Assembly Hall on the Mound at present, and the hall doesn't do it any great favours - a room filled with multiple restricted views and echoey acoustics, which made some of the speaking a bit difficult to discern.

Assembly Hall on The Mound, Edinburgh

The story is probably very familiar to most people now and is told with energy and enthusiasm. I am not a great fan of musicals I must admit, so would generally rather be shown things than told them through song. However when Terry Neason takes centre stage as Noreen, one of the women who organised look-outs for Home Office vans doing dawn raids, the whole story suddenly feels more real and visceral, largely due to her acting abilities and phenomenal voice.

First General Assembly, Edinburgh
 "Did he just say that the cheesemakers shall inherit the Earth?"

 An uplifting piece of theatre, which passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours, still reaching a wide audience as it tours again. Later this month it will be returning to Glasgow at the Citizens Theatre.

Expensive Shit - Traverse Theatre *****

Written and directed by Glasgow based Adura Onashile, Expensive Shit at the Traverse Theatre takes place in the women's toilet of a nightclub. If it hadn't already happened recently in the real world, you would think that the idea of having men getting kicks from staring through two-way mirrors into this private place was an over the top theatrical device. The Shimmy Club in Glasgow was shut down in 2013 after men were found to be paying to leer from behind the glass at women using their toilets. In the play we, the audience, sit in their place, voyeurs to a place people feel they can relax and be themselves.

If you have ever felt uncomfortable with unpaid, often African, toilet attendants in night clubs handing you paper towels, a skoosh of deoderant or a lollipop for tips, then you will recognise Tolu as that character. Nigerian toilet attendant Tolu, (Sabina Cameron) works in the toilet of a Glasgow nightclub, talking to the women and gets paid extra to encourage them to linger at the mirrors or leave the cubicle doors open. The story flits back and forwards between the present and the past where she lived at Fela Kuti's Kalkuta commune, hoping for a better life dancing at his  Afrika Shrine club.

Fela Kuti was an inspirational and controversial figure, married to umpteen of his dancers and singers.  The title of the play, an elegant word play for their stories, takes its name from a Fela Kuti album, an Afrobeat classic. The ideals of the commune, the freedom the women hoped to gain by coming to it, is questioned when the women have to face the reality of what they are being asked to do. The four Nigerian women rehearse, talk and argue in the sanctuary of the women's toilets there.

It is an arresting play, with excellent performances from Sabina Coleman in the lead role, Teri Ann Bobb Baxter, Jamie Marie Leary and Diana Yekinni. Their dance moves are slick and their arguments swing back and forth like the cubicle doors. The audience here in Edinburgh was very white and middle aged, complicit maybe in looking at the African woman in the corner of the room, but perhaps not noticing her.

Diary of a Madman - Traverse Theatre **

Gogol's novella, Dairy of a Madman, is transferred to modern Scotland by writer Al Smith and Gate Theatre. In the original a lowly civil servant driven mad by his unrequited love, eventually believes himself to be able to understand the language of dogs and that he is the next King of Spain. He gives a proper, early description of delusions and symptoms we would now recognise as schizophrenia. (Everyone knows that Gerry Britton, former Partick Thistle player and manager, now in charge of youth development, ins thee true King of Spain). I am a big fan of Russian literature and have been to visit Gogol's house in St Petersburg. So I was looking forward to this re-imagining of the story.

Visiting Gogol in St Petersburg

Instead of Arksenty Poprishchin we have actor Liam Brennan playing Pop Sheerin, a painter maintaining the family tradition, painting and repainting the Forth Rail Bridge. The first half hour is witty and quips pass back and forth between father, daughter Sophie and her mouthy pal. The arrival of English chemical engineer Matt White (boom, boom) as Pop's apprentice lays the foundation for Pop's future redundancy, at work and at home. Matt's burgeoning romance with Sophie upsets Pop's ideas of manliness. As he descends into madness the plot takes a strange turn, with wrong-headed ideas about Scottish nationalism and history shoehorned in. Pop Sheerin becomes increasingly unhinged in a cartoonish fashion, dressing as Mel Gibson's Braveheart to stand against the foreign, globalisation pressures of new-fangled American paint, Qatari share ownership and English nobility.

The portrayal of mental illness in the style of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the women's roles ("kingmakers" through sex with men or as passive wife, who inexplicably doesn't phone a CPN) and the ideas of manliness all felt clichéd, old fashioned and the political jibes were ill-informed. Matt's put down, that the Forth Rail Bridge is "no more Scottish than I am" because it's constituent parts come from elsewhere is so upside down and flawed as to be offensive. I'm quite embarrassed that this play is going on to be performed in England and give people the daft impression that people in Scotland think like the characters here. Surely it's widely accepted that once you're here, you're here and you are part of the country, whether you are a bridge or a dinner lady? Anyway, now I'm nit-picking. It started well, then went off in several strange directions.

Last Dream (On Earth) - Assembly Hall ****

Taking my kids to see Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin and rocket designer Sergei Korolev are two heroes of mine, which has led me to drag my kids to see the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow to pose under Yuri Gagarin, and drive to London to see an exhibition on the Cosmonauts. In this theatrical piece in Edinburgh Yuri sits on the launch pad, expecting death, but hoping to orbit the Earth. Our attention shifts to an African who has traveled with smugglers across the Sahara and stands on a beach in Morocco about to launch towards Europe.

These are the starting points for this performance/ sound installation designed by Kai Fischer and the National Theatre of Scotland. The five performers and musicians on stage are lined up in a row facing the audience, and we all don headphones to hear their amplified utterances, mixed with radio static and sound effects. Silences are exaggerated in this environment, as we fall below the waves of the Mediterranean or enter radio silence on the dark side of the Earth. The performers hold our gaze at the front, with excellent performances from Edward Nkom, Kimisha Lewis, Michelle Cornelius, and musicians Tyler Collins and Gameli Tordzro. The parallels are clear as we flit back and forth between those about to embark in a toy dinghy and our Cosmonaut about to launch into the darkness of space. The crackled back and forth between Vostok-1 and mission control contrast with the refugees' attempts to make re-assuring mobile phone calls home. The real transcripts used of Yuri Gagarin's communications with mission control are phenomenal. He is the epitome of calmness, reporting "mood buoyant" and "Let's go!" as the launch arrives. Both of our travellers are brave/ foolish pioneers. We only know that one of the trips will definitely end in glory.

Call Mr Robeson - Spotlites ***

Actor, singer, lawyer, campaigner Paul Robeson is the inspiration for Tayo Aluko's one man performance (with piano accompaniment), telling the story of the great man's life. Paul Robeson's booming bass voice was a familiar sound in my childhood home from an old album that my mother often played, a mixture of his singing, reading poetry or Othello's speeches from Shakespeare. He famously attended the Glasgow May Day parade in 1960, and in the play his dealings with striking Welsh miners featured prominently in the play.  

I knew a bit about the life of Paul Robeson, but learned a lot more, particularly about the extent of the hostility he faced from the American state. The tireless efforts made to deprive him of his passport, of his ability to work, even of his health, was remarkable. Tayo Aluko doesn't have the bone rattling quality to his voice that Robeson did (who does?) but his singing earned applause throughout and evoked the music that Robeson used to such powerful effect protesting against the injustice that he saw. Back home to dig out my mum's old Paul Robeson album that I've got in a box somewhere.


Milk - Traverse Theatre *****

Orla O'Loughlin of the Traverse Theatre Company directs Ross Dunsmore's first full length play, Milk. A trio of couples riff on a theme of nourishment and sustinence. Steph and Ash aged 14 (Helen Mallon and Cristian Ortega), their teacher Danny Doig and his wife Nicole (Ryan Fletcher and Melody Grove) and elderly couple May and Cyril (played by Tam Dean Burn and Ann Louise Ross). Steph's body image fixation and self-confidence issues lead her to chase after her teacher. His pregnant wife feels crushed by her inability to breastfeed when the baby comes. The old couple play the most touching scenes, with their electricity cut off, ex-soldier Cyril is too fearful of the outside world to go out and buy food. Although all the ideas don't always gel, I found the later scenes incredibly moving. It made me think back to people I know who struggled to breastfeed and were given increasingly unhelpful advice from people who should have known better. I'll admit that I was a wee bit weepy in the final scene. It brought back a moment I'd completely forgotten, the most supportive thing I ever heard for a stressed parent. Dashing around a supermarket with a screaming baby when an old man leans over and instead of moaning, says "that's the most beautiful sound in the world, the cry of a baby". Try it next time you see someone looking stressed.

Anyway, really enjoyed the play. Nicely paced direction kept things flowing along. I finished up at the Traverse and ran across to Nandos for some grub. (It only got about 10 mentions).

This Restless House. Citizens Theatre. May 2016

The Oresteia by Aeschylus and This Restless House by Zinnie Harris

The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, in collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland, are currently performing a new trilogy of plays by Zinnie Harris, This Restless House, based on the 2500 year old works by Aeschylus, The Oresteia. Before seeing the new plays I went back to look over Aeschylus' work, which for me brings back happy memories of my times visiting and working in Greece. On every trip to Greece I love to tick off ancient sites and the scenes of great dramas and myths. The Oresteia at the time it was first performed was commenting on real events in the Athenian courts of the day, as well as talking about kings, cities and gods that would be known to all in the audience. I have been lucky enough to visit many of the settings from The Oresteia, so before a brief review of This Restless House I have used this as an excuse write about beautiful, wonderful Greece. Ελλάδα, σ'αγαπώ.

(NB If you are unaware of this two and a half thousand year old story, this blog contains spoilers, so look away now.)

The Oresteia by Aeschylus

The origins of Western drama lie in Ancient Greece. Two and a half millenia ago festivals and competitions of drama were taking place and although only a small fraction of these plays have survived to this day, those that have are being endlessly performed, re-imagined and re-told. The oldest surviving intact drama is often thought of as Aeschylus' historical tragedy The Persians. It won a prize at the Dionysian festival at the foot of the Acropolis in 472BCE. By this time its creator had already been writing for 25 years. Only six of Aeschylus' 80-odd plays survive to this day (seven if Prometheus Bound is credited to him). He was in his sixties when he wrote The Oresteia trilogy of connected plays, telling the bloody story of Mycenaean King Agamemnon and his family.

Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, where Aeschylus' plays were often performed

Ancient Greek drama, stories still being told and re-told in Scottish theatres

The three plays of The Oresteia are named after Orestes, son of Agamemnon. They tell the story of a family fated by the bloody history of their ancestors to continue a cycle of violence and revenge. Through the centuries since it was written people have tried to unpick the additions and accretions of subsequent transcriptions, to get back to the 2500 year old original. In 1847 Wagner spoke of the effect it had had on him. It is said that his Ring Cycle was inspired by The Oresteia. George Eliot's character Adam Bede used to sit and read The Oresteia over breakfast and often quoted from it. The oldest book we have in our house is a beautiful 1843 edition of Aeschylus' works, perhaps the edition that Adam Bede was reading.

The Oresteia, 1843 edition

Aeschylus himself was born near Athens in about 545BCE. Although we know him as a writer of tragedies, his epitaph in Ancient Greece spoke only of his valour in the Battle of Marathon, fighting against the Persians in 490BCE, a battle in which his brother was killed. Ten years later he was alive at the time of the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae to Xerxes. He died around the age of 67 whilst in Syracuse in Sicily. It is reputed that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise upon his head, mistaking it for a rock to crack open the shell. A tragic death so bizarre you suspect it may be true.

The Oresteia trilogy of plays were first performed in 458 BCE. They start with a cycle of bloodshed and revenge and end with the world deciding whether it should instead move on from that and accept justice, and the rule of law.

The lion gates at Mycenae

After ten years away King Agamemnon returns to Mycenae, in the Northern Peloponnese, fresh from victory in the Trojan War. He has with him Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy. Before sailing he obeys the gods' command to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, in order to allow his ships to sail to Troy. With Agamemnon away his wife, Clytemnestra, is in an adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, cousin of Agamemnon. He believes the throne is rightfully his, after Agamemnon's father, Atreus, killed the brother of Aegisthus and fed him to their father Thyestes. The bloody acts of the past ensure that bloody retribution will follow in the future. 

For refusing his advances at the opening of a temple in Corinth, Cassandra, a princess and prophetess, has been cursed by Apollo with the ability to tell the future, but that nobody will believe her prophecies. The original Cassandra complex.

Temple at Corinth, beautiful Acrocorinth behind

The first play ends with Clytemnestra avenging their daughter Iphigenia, swinging her axe and killing her husband Agamemnon, and also Cassandra. She and Aegisthus become rulers of all Argos.

Ancient Argos, atop the hill, 49km from Corinth, 15km from Mycenae

Archaeologist  Heinrich Schliemann saw the events in ancient literature as a guidebook to the Greek world he excavated. In uncovering the city of Mycenae he found several grand tombs and from the contents within declared that he had found the tombs of Cassandra and of Agamemnon. The second play opens at the tomb of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers. The daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Electra, is discussing revenge with her brother Orestes. Electra convinces him to adopt a disguise and get into the royal palace. There he kills Aegisthus. He falters at the thought of killing his mother, until egged on by the god Apollo. Ridden by guilt he flees, pursued by the Furies (Eumenides), a curse from his mother in female form.

My children stepping into "Agamemnon's tomb" at Mycenae

Orestes kills Clytemnestra, a relief from a Roman sarcophagus, St Petersburg Hermitage Museum

The third play opens in the shrine of Apollo at Delphi where Orestes has fled the Furies. The oracle commands he travels to Athens and stand trial. The goddess Athena organises proceedings there, with a jury of citizens, Apollo as his advocate and the Furies as his accusers. With the jury divided Athena casts the deciding vote in favour of Orestes. The Furies threaten to turn their ire on the city of Athens itself, until Athena placates them with the promise of a place for Athenians to worship them in the city.

Temple of Apollo, Delphi

The cycle of revenge and bloodshed is ended with the rule of law and justice by the state. This final act is set at the Areopagus, the rocky site of a court in the time of Aeschylus. This is just at the foot of the Acropolis. Later the Areopagus was where Paul stood to deliver a famous sermon in Athens. It also gave its name to a prose polemical by Milton in 1644, Areopagitica, opposing censorship and arguing for freedom of speech.

Tourists snake up the Acropolis to the Parthenon, the Areopagus
lies just to the right on this photograph

The original music, dance and spectacle of Greek theatre is lost to us, but the stories live on. We have to re-imagine how the chorus and performers interacted with the story and the audience. The vase below shows a Greek performance of The Libation Bearers, the scene where Orestes is about to slay Clytemnestra, and she exposes her breast that once suckled him saying "Hold, oh child, and have shame." Again and again characters are presented with moral dilemmas where right and wrong are ambiguous. Despite being commanded to act by Apollo, can he kill his own mother? In the background a Fury is already rising, snakes held in her hands. 

Vase showing the Orestes being performed,
from the J. Paul Getty Museum

This Restless House by Zinnie Harris

I really like the photograph used by the Citizens Theatre to advertise the trilogy of plays they have produced, This Restless House, based upon the Oresteia. A family is in turmoil, a blur of movement, apart from the steady gaze of a young daughter at the centre. This is how Zinnie Harris reframes the story, by putting at the centre of it Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

Photograph used to advertise This Restless House

The three plays, put on over two performances, have been put in a contemporary setting, with the original place and characters put there. The delicate balancing act of using modern vernacular (and swearing) whilst still giving the characters gravitas works right from the off when we are introduced to the chorus. Three drunken vagrants, witnesses to everything, but largely unseen, with their impotent gnashing of teeth.

Part One, called Agamemnon's Return, opens in what resembles a shabby 1970s working men's club. After the brutal murder of her daughter by Agamemnon, Clytemnestra enters like a drunken cabaret singer, bitter and damaged. When Agamemnon returns from war, the ghost of Iphigenia is always present between them. The fetid atmosphere is built up by the dystonic musical score by Nikola Kojabashia. In Aeschylus' day the violence happens off stage, but here when Clytemnestra stabs the unarmed Agamemnon in his bath he runs naked onto the stage where Clytemnestra finishes butchering him, and unable to escape her fate, kills Cassandra in the process. With female characters the focus of this story, the fates of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra and Electra are now bound together.

(It was around about the point where Clytemnestra was slaughtering her husband that my wife and I remembered that it was our wedding anniversary tonight, an alternative interpretation of "until death us do part".)

Part Two, The Bough Breaks, sees Electra trying to banish the ghost of her father who she feels is tormenting her mother, Clytemnestra. Pouring libations of wine and vodka onto Agamemnon's tomb she meets her brother Orestes who feels damned to avenge his father. Like an unscratchable itch he cannot get this thought from his mind, sleepless and trying to drown it with alcohol he feels powerless to alter his destiny. Putting the female characters to the fore, Electra is the one bold enough to avenge her father when the time comes, Clytemnestra now a shadow of herself, knowing she is fated to eternal damnation. 

In Part Three, called Electra and her Shadow,  the setting has shifted, and it feels like a bit of a clunking gear change, as we move from a world of Ancient Greeks in contemporary garb, to the very real world of a modern psychiatry ward. Electra ended the second act in a seizure and is tormented by demons. Feeling powerless to control them or escape them her psychiatrist tries to show her that she is not a puppet to fate. The empathetic psychiatrist has to confront her own demons and the final scenes give us a version Aeschylus' divided jurors. With ghosts getting to be heard at the end the last scene packs a powerful punch that left me with a tear in the corner of my eye.


The acting, was excellent throughout, grueling in places. Particular mention must go to Pauline Knowles as Clytemnestra, George Anton as a brooding Agamemnon, Olivia Morgan as Electra and Lorn MacDonald as a twitchy Orestes and a gangly chorus member. 

The third part almost stands as a separate play in tone and message, but together the plays are a powerful re-imagining of the words and ideas from Aeschylus. The characters feel that they are doomed by events to follow a certain path, and powerless to change things. Their impotence is self-imposed and they need to be shown to take responsibility for their own actions. Maybe it is just because of the type of people that I work with that I saw a link in all this with those that feel incapable of tackling an addiction such as alcoholism. Drinkers may feel it is an inevitable response to earlier events, drowning out their demons, and then later their headaches, itches, shakes, nightmares and seizures. When drunk, are you still responsible for the actions you take?

In the plays alcohol swills about repeatedly, from louche cabaret singers, to drunk drivers and alcoholic fathers having vodka poured onto their graves. Many characters display textbook symptoms of alcoholism and a powerlessness to change their ways. Is drink now our contemporary god and demons? Well, it has been around for a while, hasn't it? The festivals of Dionysus, where the plays of Aeschylus were first performed, the driving force of Greek theatre, were festivals to the god of wine making and a frenzy of excess.

Anyway, I'll raise a glass to a powerful re-telling of some meaty stories.