MARK FISHER hails an overdue new production of a unsettling modern masterpiece.

THERE ARE many extraordinary things about David Harrower’s ten-year-old play. Extraordinary is the number of productions it has had: getting on for 80 in 25 countries and almost as many languages. Extraordinary is the play itself, a mysterious, dream-like thing unlike any other, even subsequent work by Harrower.

But perhaps most extraordinary of all is that TAG theatre company’s production is only the second time Knives in Hens has been professionally staged in Scotland.

It’s as if we’re oblivious to something the rest of the world finds blindingly obvious, even though the play was rapturously received on its debut at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in 1995. Whatever the reasons for its neglect – perhaps Scotland just doesn’t have enough theatres for all the plays it should be doing – its revival now is very welcome.

In one sense Knives in Hens is not an easy play. It’s the opposite of a big crowd-pleasing comedy, being more naturally suited to small-scale presentation and dealing in themes – about language, creativity and independence – that are subtle rather than broad. Yet, I sat in a capacity audience of lively teenagers and, apart from the odd squirm at the more sexually upfront content, they were held throughout. That’s because Harrower’s writing has  a precision and tension that makes it compelling even at most enigmatic moments.

His setting is “a rural place” in some unspecified pre-industrial past. Here we find a ploughman, Pony William (a suitably rugged Sam Heugan) and his young wife (Rosalind Sydney showing great range across the performance). Not only is their existence elemental, but so are the words they have to describe it. They look on adjectives, similes and metaphors as something decadent, to be feared as they fear the hated miller (a worldly-wise John Kazek) who grinds their corn and writes his thoughts down on paper.

When the young woman dares to confront her fears, she opens up a universe of possibility. She realises that if the miller is not the  ogre the villagers have painted him, then perhaps independent thought and creativity will not be so scary either. Her Cinderella journey from innocence to awareness has begun. Thus it is that Harrower uses a simple fable and an austere style to create a play that chimes at some deep level with all our fears and aspirations.

See it now in case it’s another ten years before you get the chance.

TAG Theatre perform Knives in Hens at the following venues:
Deeside CEC Theatre, Saturday 26 February 2005
Dalrymple Arts Centre, Fraserburgh, Monday 28 February 2005
High School, Lossiemouth, Wednesday 2 March, 2005
Speyside High School, Aberlour, Thursday 3 March 2005
Tullynessle Village Hall, Alford, Friday 4 March, 2005
Universal Hall, Findhorn, Saturday 5 March 2005

© Mark Fisher, 2005