Stellar Quines, Byre Theatre, St Andrews, and touring 2007

Stellar Quines' Unconquered.

THE FIRST thing to say about Torben Betts’ new play in this Stellar Quines production is it’s well worth seeing. The second is that, although you’ll be impressed by the writing, mesmerised by the performances and delighted by the 2-D strip-cartoon style, you might come away feeling less than satisfied.

Muriel Romanes’ production is exciting in so many ways – intellectually demanding, politically engaging and aesthetically arresting – yet it doesn’t produce the sense of exhilaration that the company’s efforts merit.

Steering away from the gentle waters previously occupied by the female-centric company, Romanes has opted to work with Betts, an English playwright often compared to Howard Barker for his muscular language and uncomfortable themes.

Curiously, Betts has also been compared to Alan Ayckbourn because he’s prone to turn out a bourgeois comedy from time to time, but ‘The Unconquered’ is defiantly in Barker territory. It’s an unsentimental study of human behaviour under extreme pressure, concerned less with surface realism than deep motivations.

We’re in an ordinary house where two parents and their teenage daughter are intruded upon by a soldier. Outside a revolution is in place, the workers have seized power and a counter-revolution is being encouraged by foreign forces.

Self-interested to the last, the parents care for these events only to the extent that they threaten their wealth. Even their daughter, who professes an austere form of socialism, seems incapable of engaging in the revolution. The triumph of the reactionary soldier is depressingly easy.

Three things distinguish the production. First is the design by artist Keith McIntyre, who creates a black-and-white world in which everything is flat. In this comic book landscape, guns, aeroplanes, newspapers and tables have no more depth than a cardboard cut-out.

Second is the acting by Pauline Turner (daughter), Jane Guernier (mother), Kevin McMonagle (father) and Nigel Barrett (soldier), who perform with a relentless intensity. In this expressionistic pressure-cooker of a play, they care only for themselves and rarely pause to hear anyone else out.

Third is the writing that fuels this, a vigorous and funny riot of language that demands attention.

For these reasons, it’s a distinctive and commendable show. It’s just that the more pummelled you are by the break-neck delivery, the less you hold on to what is at stake. Somewhere between concept and execution the politics of this political play have become obscured. We shouldn’t need playwrights to give us answers, but in ‘The Unconquered’ I lost sight of the question.

(The Unconquered can be seen at Universal Hall, Findhorn, 16 March; Birnam Arts Centre, Dunkeld, 17 March; Lyth Arts Centre, 19-20 March; Strathpeffer Pavilion, 21 March; Aultbea Hall, 22 March; Lochcarron Village Hall, 23 March; Sabhal mor Ostaig, Sleat, 24 March).

© Mark Fisher, 2007

Links

• Stellar Quines