Theatre Hebrides

THEATRE HEBRIDES aim to create unique theatre inspired by the contemporary and traditional cultures of the Western Isles.

Mission Statement

theatreHebrides was setup in Lewis in 2003 to enable locally based professional theatre makers to create unique theatre inspired by the contemporary and traditional cultures of the Western Isles. Several of the founder members, Maggie Smith, Donald Ruadh, Peter Urpeth and Muriel Ann Macleod, wanted to see a specifically Western Isles theatre voice emerge – a theatre which celebrated and promoted the Hebrides.

Since then, a process of commissioning new plays has emerged. This new work, whether historical or modern, reflects core Island themes and issues but always they are researched with local people and it is their ideas and experiences in many aspects that are revealed.

With this locally emerged work the company aims to show differing views from within the community and let the audience make up their own minds on the merits of these. This gives a particular insight into Island life and experiences – the work in essence belongs to the Island Community.
 Usually the emerging stories and issues have universal themes and shows like ‘The Callanish Stoned’ touched on issues not unusual to young adults living in many rural highland communities. In touring our work in Scotland and further a field the resonances of Island experiences to many other rural or city communities never ceases to surprise us.

The company’s commitment is to tour in the Highlands and Islands but also to take Hebridean work to the Central Belt of Scotland and further afield. Recently ‘The Callanish Stoned’ toured to a theatre festival in Ipswich, but our aspirations are to tour abroad.

The artists we employ can vary from local to International writers and directors. But our commitment is foremost to employing island-originated and local artists, often bringing actors back to the Islands to work for several weeks before touring widely in Scotland. theatreHebrides is specifically interested in delivering high quality acting work and in encouraging the development and training of actors.

The company is committed to working in collaboration with other Scottish and International companies and individuals in order to develop the highest standards of theatre emerging from the Western Isles. Current initiatives involve a collaboration with Fablevision in Glasgow on the Spàrr project for 2007 and development work with The National Theatre of Scotland on ‘The Sked Crew’ by Ian Stephen (details below)

The aims of theatreHebrides as summarised as follows:-

• To celebrate the traditions, histories and contemporary cultures of the Western Isles.

• to develop and enhance the understanding, awareness, and practice of professional theatre within the Western Isles community.

• to create in the Western Isles performances of the highest possible standard, in both English and bi-lingually in Gaelic.

• by working with partners within the Western Isles, and in particular with schools and colleges and young people, to enhance the use and awareness of theatre as an educational and social tool.

• to develop and enhance individual skills and practice of theatre with actors, directors, writers, theatre technicians, film makers, within the Western Isles through the use of masterclasses and national collaborations of artists. To work with partners, within the Highlands, Scotland, the U.K. and Internationally, to develop best practice across the board in the creation, production and development of theatre skills.
 

Current Production and Work in Progress

theatreHebrides works in two areas:-

• Community Workshop Programmes
• Commissioning Production and Touring of New Work

The Company has just completed a three week tour of Highland /Central Belt venues (with an added excursion to Ipswich) of ‘The Callanish Stoned’, which premiered at the new An Lanntair Arts Centre in Stornoway in March. The play was written by local playwright Kevin McNeil, and directed by the the company’s Artistic Director, Muriel Ann Macleod. Audiences were high in Stornoway (around 600 people) and some other venues, and the production attracted great reviews and comment.

Figurative Theatre is an ongoing project involving the commissioning by the company of short plays for street and Highland games performances on subjects of local historical interest, touring various venues in Lewis and Harris during the summer months. In 2005 there were three plays featured, covering the history of the Watermill in the Castle Grounds of Stornoway, the herring girls of Stornoway, and the impact of the Mathesons, land owners of Lewis in the nineteenth century.

This summer’s project, ‘Winds for Sail’ (which is still dependent on raising funding) will hopefully commission two emerging Island playwrights, developing two comedy pieces for street theatre, one based on the Kelp industry in the Islands and the other focusing on fishing and sailing Sgoth or Zulus.

Community Workshop Programmes:

• Video Heb is a youth video project which is now nearing completion, the project has been running for the last year delivering weekly group video workshops to develop film making skills. Three short films are being made by the young people, films include; a horror film shot in the local Castle Grounds, a documentary on the local band scene and a “jackass” comedy type piece. The films will be showcased in An Lanntair this summer.

• Acting workshops: A series of weekly performance workshops aimed at community participant’s over16 years old. This project is a10 week pilot project delivered in collaboration with An Lanntair, Stornoway

• Playwrights Group: Planned for later in 2006/7 is the setting up of a playwrights group in partnership with the Traverse Theatre.

• ArtsPlay Hebrides is a new project which is about to start on the Islands. ArtsPlay Hebrides will compile a bank of artists to work in childcare environments throughout the Western Isles, providing workshops in nurseries and playgroups in the following disciplines: puppetry, music, drama, dance, story-telling and visual art.

New Commissions include ‘The Sked Crew’ by local writer Ian Stephen, which in the next few months will go into development for a week in Glasgow, in collaboration with the Scottish National Theatre. The original shorter version of ‘The Sked Crew’ was directed by Alison Peebles, with actresses Alyth McCormack, Mairi Morrison and Muriel Ann Macleod. Following the development week it is likely that theatreHebrides will commission Ian to write a full length piece which will focus on the Sked Crew characters and will consider the lifestyle of the many women who worked in the fishing industry at the turn of the century. The show will present the unique voice of the issues of Lewis women and will hopefully tour to fishing villages and towns around Britain.

‘Na Daoine (The Men)’ is a new Playwrights Commission from award winning Gaelic writer Angus Peter Campbell. Na Doaine focuses on the social and political issues around the formation on the Free Church in the Western Isles in the 1840’s. The play is to be developed over the coming year in association with international director John Wright of Told By and Idiot.

‘Spàrr à Steòrnabhagh a Bhaile Ghobhainn’ is a community project which is being developed in collaboration with Fablevision (Govan based Theatre and Media Company). Spàrr is a bi-lingual (Gaelic and English) celebration of shipbuilding in Lewis and in Govan through theatre and film, revealing the skills, motivations and inspirations of those people from the Islands in recent generations who were inspired by the craft of the shipwright and travelled to Govan to continue to work in that industry.

The Project will work with artists residencies, cross-generational dialogue, workshops, storytelling, film, craft and traditional skills in the indigenous communities in Lewis and Govan. It will consider the significance of the industry of the shipwright, and the legacy left by our seafaring cultures. The final community play and films will be showcased in Islands and Govan to celebrate the year of Highland Culture in July 2007.

Fantasy Theatre – Your Dream Project?

Fantasy theatre would be that ideal of having a full time company which could employ artists for 12 months of the year. The model we like most at the moment is Blue Raincoat Theatre Company working in Sligo in Ireland, where they have their own venue-making-rehearsal-workshop space. They produce 2 major touring shows a year, and the rest of the time the actors and theatre artists work in the community delivering workshops and community projects – working right across the society, with elderly people as well a young people.

In Sweden also a wonderful model exists where even alternative theatre companies employ artists for up to 8 months a year with the remit of producing two pieces of theatre per year, working in their own venue. Rehearsal times are longer and more time can be spent on the development of the work in group process. If this could happen in the Islands, well, there is nothing we could not do!
 
Golden Moment?

The opening night of the production of ‘Metagama’, by Dermot Healy in 2004, which premiered in Studio Alba, Stornoway, and then toured various venues in Scotland. On the opening night the reaction to Artair Donald, Chris Craig and Mairi Morrison in their short Iolaire scene was unforgettable. Older and younger members of the audience sat crying in the auditorium they were so moved by the experience of seeing their community history being represented on stage. We did not expect the audience to be so moved and become emotional in that way.

And Not So Golden Moment?

When ‘The Callanish Stoned’ toured to Fort William, that was not so golden. We had a great deal of difficulty getting a booking in Fort William, there were all sorts of problems, we ended up in the Nevis Centre small studio space, the bowling next door had to be cancelled for the night and that was going to cost us money – a fee of £400, but still, we though it a good idea to go there with Callanish which was a humorous show which appealed to young people.

After a two hour get-in the show went up and within minutes unfortunately one of the actresses was taken ill and had to be rushed to hospital. So with the best will and extensive effort sometimes the show just cannot happen!

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

A response from Peter Lyons, playwright and member of the Board of Directors of Theatre Hebrides:

The question is not whether there is such a thing – recent productions by the 20 or so professionally based companies in the Highlands and Islands proves it exists. The question is to what extent it can be developed further. One aim must be to make live physical performance, whereby the audience must react, one way or another, to what is before them, a viable alternative to the vicarious television culture.

Theatre, in any culture, is excitement, audience group catharsis and therapy, storytelling, insight on our times, history, and culture, all rolled into one. Highland audiences deserve this exposure, and should not be penalised simply because they are scattered, remote, and seen as economically unviable.

At a time when 90% of the population lives in urban conurbations, communities outside the ‘mainstream’ can be seen all too often as politically and socially unimportant. The re-instatement of some of the parameters and traditions of Greek and Elizabethan drama, to name but two, whereby theatre was an antidote to the prevailing political or religious ethos, is as much needed in the Highlands as elsewhere.

And without making too much of it in the prevailing social democracy of Scotland and the U.K, live theatre, well within living memory, has acted as a protection and lightening conductor for peoples oppressed by tyranny, as in Czechoslovakia and the Baltic States during the Soviet era.

Theatre in this context can provide something which television and film, through sheer economics, can never do – present platforms through the use of local writers and other theatre practitioners whereby Highlanders and Islanders can gain fresh insight on contexts of their history, their traditions, their current issues, and their lives.

In addition exposure to a particular art form can develop a group or ‘school’ of practitioners (in the case of theatre, actors, directors, writers) whose work impacts in the wider world. (Examples include the writers groups of Paris and Bloomsbury in the 20th century, the Athenian dramatists of the Socratic period, the Nobel Laureates of St. Lucia, and in other contexts, the buzz of creative energy in music, poetry and drama which characterised Liverpool in the sixties and seventies.)

There is no reason why any area of the world, however small, of whatever type, including the Highlands and Islands, cannot produce similar outpourings of talent, provided they are first exposed to the relevant art form (in this case theatre), and then encouraged and supported in their development.

© Muriel Ann Macleod and Peter Lyons, 2006