Spectrum Centre, Inverness, 11 April 2006

Sealskin Trousers

BASED ON A short story by Orcadian author Eric Linklater “Sealskin Trousers” has been adapted for the stage by director Jonothan Campbell.

The complexity of the staging involving projection, scaffolding, aerial work and the creation of a real curtain of water is both technically complicated and arduous. Two days of set-up is required between each performance. It is an intriguing and beautiful piece of visual design that as an evening of theatre begs further investment and development.

Visually it is wonderfully inventive and accomplished, as seductive as the Selkie who turns the central character Elizabeth away from the human world of work and responsibility to “a life of sensation” in the sea.

A combination of computer animation, blue screen technology and film mixed by John McGeoch, together with aerial performance and back projection through an actual mist of water, create the underwater scenes.

It is exactly what the Selkie (Andrew Murray) describes to Elizabeth (Kally Lloyd Jones), “the sensation of water against your side.” As an audience member it is impossible not to be enveloped by it.

The audience are submerged and mesmerised by the lapping of waves, a water curtain that dissolves into the projected shoreline we feel we could reach out and touch with the full depth of all of our senses. It is a beautifully realised metaphor for the veil between two worlds that is central to folk and fairytales.

This production has that kind of magic but lacks development in the writing and the depth of its characters. Elizabeth’s descent into the sea is dealt with in multilayered visual depth, but lacks the human intensity at the heart of the selkie myth.

We are confronted by a beautiful dive into the element of water rather than the dilemma of choosing to live between the land and the ocean and all these represent. There is huge scope here for development into a fully rounded production which touches the audience’s emotions and their minds through every part of the dialogue, every movement, every image.

At the conclusion of ‘Sealskin Trousers’ we are left wanting more, like a first act over in anticipation of a second or perhaps even a third. Although the production is visually striking and technologically challenging it feels strangely incomplete, like hearing only the first movement of a symphony.

I sincerely hope that it will be developed further as a co-production between Aye Productions and Arts in Motion, and that it will be performed again in a larger theatre space. Fuller development of all its creative ideas and technological innovations would prepare it better for the rigours of touring and combine all the elements of performance in equal measure.

Nonetheless, this is a creatively challenging production that will seduce and engage your senses.

Sealskin Trousers continues its Highlands and Islands tour to the Craigmonie Centre, Drumnadrochit (13 April); The MacPhaill Centre, Ullapool (15 April); Kinlochbervie High School (19 April), and An Lanntair, Stornoway (22 April).

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

Link

• Sealskin Trousers