Rantin

Now that my break in the tropics of Glasgow is finished, I have finally been processing my thoughts and encounters from such a long stint in my neighbour paradise city. Co-incidentally, I worked on the NTS production Rantin at the same time. I say coincidence because Rantin is a theatre piece that is preoccupied with identity, Scottishness and caricature within a contemporary context, and some of the insights from the show resonated strongly with my own project.

I saw the show early last year as part of the Arches Behaviour Festival and was really happy to work on it again as it has grown legs into a full touring production. Asked to produce a poster image, publicity material and the production images for its current tour, I had the rare banquet of being able to work on a production from start to finish. 

Having seen Kieran's other work, I have loved how he roots his work in a Scotland I know – through music, through lifestyle, through history. The contemporary orientation of his writing shows the blemishes as well as the beauty and I wanted to import as much of this as I could into the poster. Looking through early postcards for my research, I had already encountered some tartan gems to base the image around. Classic tartan tabletops, with painter's window-light, follow a formulaic recipe of traditional wares, the odd obscure prop perched on romantic, flowing tablecloths. For the poster we wanted to keep the colour palette and sensational lighting of the early colourised still life, but replace the jaded shortbread, haggis and quaichs for modern jaded equivalents.

The show uses its own props and symbols that make great centre pieces for our image, but it was a hard thing to narrow down the rest. The fish supper and Tenants Super are cardinal of course, but I couldn't satisfy my imagination without a ubiquitous traffic cone, old runners, or seagul that come with the territory of modern Scotland. Thankfully we reached a happy medium of artifact and artiface for the final image, but not before I turned the rehearsal rooms into a bazaar of salvage with more than a faint fragrance of poisonous alcohol and battered fish.

As you read, if the band are not currently performing in Thurso, they are on their way through Tongue, Ullapool and Oban, purveying and deciphering the great mystery of Scottishness as they go.

The press and production images from the show:

e

In Time O' Strife

I feel pretty grateful to hold this document in my hands. A playtext, precious on two counts. Firstly, In Time O' Strife, the latest production from NTS. Its genesis in the writings of Joe Corrie, a beautiful but largely obscure Fife poet and playwright. "Obscure" may be an unjust description of this striking and humbling career, but it does hint at the ephemeral coincidence and fortunes that brought his writings back to the stage in 2013. A reminder that some of the most brilliant works spend a lifetime on the verge of never happening.

Secondly, this is my first published playtext. With images from my shoot with the company during rehearsals, the script becomes a more immersive medium to get lost in Corrie's writing. I was sat front row centre last week for the opening of the production's short run. A brave seat choice, as Joe Corrie's words crystallised before us into a thunderous and emotional wave of stark, politicised energy. But gratitude remained as the smoke and lights cleared. To have worked on something so unintentionally evasive enjoy only a fleeting run. It felt that history was being made and remade on a torrential October night in Kirkcaldy.

Hannah Donaldson, Ewan Stewart, Tom McGovern, Vicki Manderson, Paul Tinto, Owen Whitelaw, Anita Vettesse

Ewan Stewart as Jock

Ewan Stewart and Anita Vettesse

Anita Vetesse as Jean

Ewan Stewart as Jock

Owen Whitelaw and Hannah Donaldson

Hannah Donaldson as Jenny

Owen Whitelaw as Wull Baxter

Paul Tinto as Bob

Vicki Manderson as Kate

Tom McGovern as Tam

Jennifer Reeve

MJ McCarthy, Jennifer Reeve, Johnny Scott, Adam John Scott

e

Auteurs

This weekend ushers in the end of The Arches Behavior Festival for 2013. A heady five weeks of completely new work for the stage from Scottish and international artists. Eclectic and contemporary as only the Arches can, even the term "stage" is only applied loosely. This year saw a new creative partnership come to fruition between the Arches and NTS, which I am very indebted to have been involved in from early on.

The project gave five rising Scottish devisers an opportunity to research, incubate and perform new work at the festival. Each with their own developing trademarks and disciplines, some of them out and out rogues, but all of them auteurs of their craft. Having had the chance to meet them together for the school portrait lineup for a feature in The List, I was brimming to shoot all of their performances individually over the course of the month.

First was Gary McNair's brilliantly referential investigation into stand-up comedy: Donald Robertson is not a Comedian.

Kieran Hurley explored notions of community and ideals of Scottishness in, effectively, a living room jamboree. Intimate and foot tapping: Rantin

Claire Cunningham's ongoing curiosity in the body brought her to and back from Cambodia to begin a work meditating on the effects of landmines. A framework of disability through which the indiscriminate excess of war can be viewed from a humble perspective: Pink Mist

Finally, Rob Drummond's centenary revisiting of Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, through a screen of contemporary dance and music as well as recent societal dysfunctions. Leaving the outcome in the hands of the audience: The Riots of Spring

There have been heaps of great writing documenting the Festival, but for a succinct in house perspective check out Rosie's blog.

e

Macbeth

The National Theatre of Scotland are re-imagining a literally wicked classic in the most wicked way. Currently in rehearsal at Tramway in Glasgow, this dark, modernised rendition of Shakespeare is set against the backdrop of a ward in a psychiatric asylum. It's sole inmate, none other than Alan Cumming, channels each of the main antagonists in beautiful, tortured monologues, echoing the darkest elements of the script in the shadowy, schizophrenic milieu.

Exciting stuff indeed. I was delighted to lend my interpretation to the rehearsal production images. It is always thrilling to see something monumental in development, and the scale of the set, rich with decayed, rusty detail, really appeals to the dark side of my image making. Images have already been used in an early review by the Scotsman.

 For me personally, it has really blown off some cobwebs from the days I studied Macbeth for the marathon trials of Leaving Cert English in Ireland. Try as you might at that tender age when all that would make you happy in the world would be to barely pass a subject, let alone engage with the material. Something with as fresh and contemporary a treatment would have been just the ingredient for my young jaded mind. Still though, its not too late. Better get my tickets!

Check out the Trailer for the show below.



                 Macbeth - Trailer from National Theatre of Scotland on Vimeo.

e