Dogstar

DOGSTAR THEATRE hit the road this month with a new production of writer Ali Smith’s The Seer
 

Mission Statement

Dogstar has evolved from the basic need for working artists to get together and create, and of course, survive. In the beginning there was no overarching vision, other than the aesthetic or principle which might ultimately be generated by the work itself, and the idea of a mission statement, in which future aims are envisioned and some kind of course plotted, was probably the furthest thing from our minds.

The platform for the early work of the company was provided by Highland Festival, who funded our successive productions of 1998 and 1999, namely Redcoats and The Captain’s Collection, moving from a kind of anarchic pub theatre to a more intensive collaborative work, which, by visiting the ghosts and dreams dwelling within the pages of a music collection, looked at the role played by Highland gentry in the blackout of the Celtic consciousness.
 
The Captain’s Collection was adapted into a radio series, the score developed into a CD, the work thus proving to have further possibilities beyond the stage.

Staying with the music theatre genre, The Strathspey King, based on the life of fiddler and composer James Scott Skinner, was this time adapted from radio for stage, while Seven Ages, a series of seven short plays based on the ancient concept of the seven ages of man, was interwoven with songs and tunes from the very heart of the Gaelic tradition.

Our work has toured throughout Scotland, principally in the north, with financial assistance from the Highland Producer’s Fund, SAC’s Scotland Onstage, HIE touring fund, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the Chase Charity and a SAC Lottery Funded project grant (for the forthcoming seven week tour of The Seer by Ali Smith).

Work in Progress

The Seer is a wickedly funny satirical comedy of manners by Inverness-born Booker Prize nominee and Whitbread Prize winner Ali Smith. It brought the house down in a rehearsed reading at Hootananny in Inverness in March 2005.

Neil and Iona are a smugly comfortable couple in their early thirties. They have well-paid professional jobs in the new Highland metropolis but their lives are ordered to the point of tedious sterility. Into their existence bursts Kirsty, Iona’s anarchic sister, who immediately challenges their status quo at every turn.

Directed by Matthew Zajac, the cast features Doug Russel, Viviene Graham, Sarah Haworth, Irene Allan and Mairi Morrison. Production design and management by David Ramsay, stage management and lighting design by Cara Wiseman. Sound design is by Andy Thorburn. Premiering at the Spectrum Centre in Inverness on 3-4 May 2006, the play will then embark on a seven week tour throughout Scotland, the longest tour yet undertaken by the company.

The Seer represents both an artistic challenge and development as we broaden our scope to include more writers. We are currently planning to develop Henry Adam’s At the End of the World and in the Morning (in conjuction with the National Theatre of Scotland), Matthew Zajac’s The Tailor of Inverness, and The Heretic’s Tale by Hamish MacDonald. We have recently founded a new company and board, and now grapple with the concept of organisational review and the business plan, stumbling wide-eyed and dumbly towards the twilit world of the mission statement.

Fantasy Theatre – Your Dream Project?

Our dream show would be a continuous programme, and our dream theatre would have this magic halo around it that could somehow repel needless bureaucracy. We would produce the above three plays for a start, plus at least some of the other stuff that’s been talked about over the years.

It would be more about self belief in continuing to do what we do, and do it well, rather than say (great and valid a dream as it may be) in attracting some great director to cast say Sean Connery or Billy Connolly in whatever you might wish to imagine. And of course, to be, of all things, “sexy” and “cutting edge”.

Golden moment?

This is rather a subjective one, as I think everyone usually has their personal favourite. Our first ever performance of The Captain’s Collection certainly lives in the memory, premiered in Errogie where the eponymous Captain came from. The little Stratherrick Hall hadn’t been used for quite a while, and we weren’t sure what the reaction would be, when nearly two hundred souls appeared and crammed into the hall.

Just before the play opened, a ghostly mist drifted down off the Monadhliath like a visitation. The hall had no entertainments licence and the community were therefore unable to charge at the door, so buckets went round at the and the amount taken was staggering, certainly exceeding what would have been taken in admission money.

And Not So Golden Moment?

On the second Captain’s Collection tour, turning up to do a performance at The Nevis Centre in Fort William. The set was dwarfed in a sports hall the size of Ikea, and with one minute to opening the audience numbered zero. Six souls straggled in who had travelled from Glenfinnan so we felt duty bound to perform. We headed for the office to have a word with the promoter, only to be told he’d been given his jotters four weeks ago, so the show hadn’t been promoted at all.

I remember the interval, outside the venue under a Fort William sky, taking turns each battering a claymore into a fencepost to burn up some of our frustrations. And yet later on we considered it wasn’t too bad a show that night, hoovering concillatory lager down our necks in the Nevis Bank.

Highland Theatre – Is There Such A Thing, and If So, What Is It?

Yes, of course it exists, albeit very precariously, and fuelled by huge amounts of unpaid time and energy on the part of the artists, which probably doesn’t distinguish it in any way from small scale Scottish theatre in general.

© Hamish MacDonald, 2006

Links

• Dogstar Theatre