An Lanntair, Stornoway, 12 October 2007, and touring

The Bongilee and Mrs MacLeod.

THEATRE HEBRIDES have a plan. Unusual departure from the normal island way of doing things, but that’s the point. The company have a long track record of originating new works of theatre, but making a bridge to allow access to a new audience.

There is a basis in island cultural heritage but a will to invent and the guts to take risks. So before enthusing about their current production of Kevin Macneil’s “The Callanish Stoned”, I’d like to give some context.

Past productions have included a large scale community play, “Portrona”, written by Norman Malcolm Macdonald. Macdonald later made a version of the work as a novel (still available from Birlinn). It contains the finest writing on the Iolaire disaster I’ve encountered and some of the lines from the play/novel are the resonant poetry of a people defined by the seas that surround them.

The performances took place in a disused transit shed on Number One pier and combined the work of committed amateurs with telling use of professional skills.

The town did become a real community again, with the shop-owners dressed for the occasion, in period costume. Gaelic choirs and drama groups worked together with English language groups and local enthusiasts of classical music.

Then there was “An Clo Mor” by Henry Adam. A draughty disused mill was filled to capacity in wintry conditions as the politics of the Harris Tweed industry were dramatised. As driving hail filtered into the building we huddled together to be completely engaged by simple staging and superb acting.

Again, challenges were met by local performers playing to the peak of their skills. Domhnall Ruadh is an experienced actor, writer and director but his performance of a Harris Tweed godfather was masterful. We have links to local history. The production contains quality heritage elements but the aims are wider. Issues are examined.

The current production is seeking a connection with a younger audience as well as providing quality entertainment for old guys like me, already committed to supporting theatre.

Kevin Macneil writes poetry and fiction and is probably best known for his novel “The Stornoway Way.” The play shares some of the tone of the book, including the style of humour. But I think the disciplines of theatre and the need to develop work as a team game have sharpened the wit and tightened up the plot.

But it’s still commendably bizarre. The first night was a full house and there was a high proportion of younger folk there, first stop on a proper SY Friday night out.

It’s a road movie with a limited stretch of tarmac – Stornoway to Callanish. But it’s a mental one in more ways than one. Two mates who are of course called Lewis and Harris join forces with a blone (female of the species) with wheels, or rather her dope-dealing, hard man brother’s wheels.

She wants to be a writer but she’s more interested in Kerouac than the bard William Ross. The ghost of the latter is also on the road. So is our antihero’s mother, on the chase, to bring her boy back to righteousness or at least give him the tongue lashing of a lifetime.

That’s simple enough but it gets a bit more complicated. There’s a liberal minister, a challenged petrol-station attendant, the aforementioned stray bard out of his time, a homicidal hillbilly crofter who might have walked off a Tarantino set.

And a genuine SY (Stornoway) hardman, the sort of cove (male of the species) who goes to a fight and a dance breaks out (as in Iain Macdonald’s song). By the way, all these dudes are played by the same virtuoso actor, David Walker.

A dippy hippy on a bicycle and the hardman’s extremely blonde moll are also played with gusto by the same actor, Fiona Morrison, but this is one performance which would benefit from a bit of toning down.

All these elements were already in the previous production along with the use of projection and a haunting guitar soundtrack written by Willie Campbell but finely played this time by Rod Morison.

The projection of Neil McConnell’s restrained filming of urban and rural Lewis is used to stronger effect this time round but I felt, with all the action and gags and wit to contend with, the guitar chords could have been allowed to linger that bit longer, providing a little more space.

Lighting, staging, sound and all the technical aspects are designed to be simple and strong, effective in a tour which will include a range of venues. The movement of the actors on stage is also more choreographed and all the better for it. All the visual and audio effects work together in a bold but unfussy way.

The big development is the characterisation. The central performances of the lad and his mother (David Rennie-Fitzgerald and Carina Macleod) are excellent and that bit more rounded than in the previous run. We can believe in the more humane aspect to both. They are no longer just devices to run through the witty script.

Some of the other characters are, like those in Fielding’s own road movie, “Tom Jones”, more stock comic ones but they are offset by these central ones who show glimpses of human warmth.

Newcomer Gemma McGee is confident, funny and tender. Ruairidh Maciver, as the sidekick in green hair, is consistently strong. So the range of skilled performers is growing with the range of the audience.

Most of the jokes will resonate in other small towns. I don’t see why it shouldn’t work well in Wales and Ireland. But there’s a few gags won’t cross the Minch. Mind you, we wouldn’t worry about that in a play written in Glasgowspeak or Geordie, so fair’s fair.

(The Callanish Stoned plays at Aultbea Hall (16 October), The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen (17 October), Craigmonie Centre, Drumnadrochit (Drama na h-Alba, 18, 20 and 21 October), and Biggar Corn Exchange (23 October)

© Ian Stephen, 2007

Links

• Theatre Hebrides
• Dràma Na h-Alba