Review by Kenny Mathieson
NTS Transform Caithness – Hunter
26 Jun 2009 in Dance & Drama, Highland, Music
Various Venues, Thurso, 25 June 2009
Hunter (Photo - Fin Macrae)
HALF AN HOUR before the performance is due to start, and it is clear that something big is afoot in Thurso (and given some of the weirdness in store, it wouldn’t actually be a surprise if it did include Bigfoot). Groups of young people disperse from Skinandi’s in diverse directions, and a gorilla (albeit one wearing a t-shirt) peers out from the window of the British Legion.
What is happening, of course, is the culmination of two months of intense creativity and very hard work on the National Theatre of Scotland’s Transform Caithness project, Hunter.
The scale of it put even the biggest of the NTS’s mainstage theatre projects in the shade. Over 170 performers, dominated by over 100 pupils from Thurso High School, but also including the Ormlie Youth Drama Group, the Ormlie Young Mother’s Group, the Kaithness Kickers, Melvich Gaelic Choir, the Thurso Players, the Caithness Handbell Ringers, and sundry other characters, including two guys in rabbit suits.
That mammoth cast was distributed around seven venues in the city, several of which were also open for their usual activities and clientele. Add all of that web of connections together, and it is easy to see that there can have been few people in this community that have not been touched by the project in some way – and many of them will have been profoundly affected by it.
John Tiffany and Stephen Hoggett (of Black Watch fame) led the creative team, supported by Johnny McKnight, Eddie Kay, composer Brian Docherty and writer Rob Drummond, and a six-strong production team led by Julie Brown. They have worked with the various school and community participants in creating the show from scratch, and set themselves a very ambitious target.
If you just heard a strange twang and a loud thud, it was the sound of an arrow hitting the bullseye. The story they teased out revolved around the disappearance of a young girl, Parker Bell, who has problems at home with her abusive father, and is apparently being stalked by a mysterious character named Hunter, who may be a drug dealer, an occult presence, a killer – who knows?
One of the themes that emerged in the show was precisely that – the way in which rumours and proliferating versions of stories fly around in smaller communities, creating layers of speculation and myth around their subjects. It was a point underlined again in the voiceover that accompanied the resolution of the tale, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I joined the queue outside St Peter’s Episcopal Church at the appointed time, and we duly filed in, to be given a coloured wristband and directed into the pews by our guides for the evening. We found ourselves in a town meeting, where we were told that Parker Bell was missing, and that we would be sent on a hunt for clues.
Each group made their way in different order round five superbly produced and performed set-pieces involving drama, dance, singing, and some odd interventions as we walked between the venues. Indeed, it reached the stage where you eyed any passing citizens suspiciously, wondering what kind of performance they were about the break into. But then, that was exactly what John Tiffany intended.
My own group began our search at a spooky sèance in the foyer of the Mill Theatre (although we had to negotiate the aforesaid giant rabbits and a group of bellringers before we got there). Four rather nervous friends tried to make contact with Parker Bell’s spirit. Things didn’t go quite to plan for them in a scene that was very effectively staged and performed.
A library book left on the floor as they fled provided the clue to our next destination, the local Library. There, a group of even younger and scarily proficient kids from Ormlie Youth Drama Group took us through Parker’s reading history. A scribbled note in the margins of Lord of the Flies sent us back to the church.
There, Parker’s friends sent their own messages in the form of touching letters read aloud. One quotation from a letter provided the next clue, and dispatched us to the Horizons Cafè, where the biggest of the drama groups from Thurso High were already seated at tables. We filled the empty seats at each, and they began to speak of Parker.
The general hubbub was broken by one girl making a loud declaration that she had gone, a claim that started a chain reaction of confrontations between the tables, again very effectively performed, before they waitresses evicted the lot.
The next port of call was the British Legion, where three older ladies acted out a melancholy scene in which they recalled an earlier disappearance in the town many years before. As they finished, the large group seated in the next bay were revealed as the Melvich Gaelic Choir when they broke into a lovely song.
The penultimate venue was the most unusual, and perhaps the most striking, a domestic one-car garage under a house – supposedly where Parker Bell lived – by the river. We were berated by Parker’s drunken father outside the house, then the garage door swung open to reveal a turf floor, atmospheric lighting, and five dancers clad in white.
Their dance was brought to a disturbing end by the appearance of Hunter, who seemed to have some demonic power over them. As it turned out, this proved to be a bit of a red herring (and not the first of the evening, either).
All of the groups then converged on Skinandi’s, the local nightclub, where the Kaithness Kickers held the floor (dancing to a surprisingly modern, non-country repertoire). As the left, Chaos took the stage to perform their new single, ‘Gold and Silver’, a title that had formed part of some prominently placed chalked graffiti on the walk – and isn’t that bass player Hunter? In this show, everything connects.
That included Parker and Hunter, but not just yet. Before that, we had an energised dance sequence featuring a large group from the High School contingent. And then Parker is passed over the head of the dancers and united on stage with Hunter, who isn’t really a bad guy after all. And as they embrace to a shower of fireworks, the voiceover starts to roll out various versions of what is becoming the myth of Parker and Hunter before our very ears …
Given all the parameters that had to be dealt with, what we saw was a remarkable outcome, and the value of the process for those involved can only be guessed at. It is likely to be enormous and genuinely transforming in many cases, and the whole project will surely leave an indelible mark on Thurso and all those involved in it. Which is exactly what Transforms are intended to do.
© Kenny Mathieson, 2009
