Community Centre, Gairloch, 21 July 2009

Midsummer featuring Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon (photo - Douglas Robertson).

MIDSUMMER, written by David Greig and musician Gordon McIntyre, was a sell-out last autumn at the Traverse and no wonder; it was a revelation in the Gairloch Community Centre, a building which even its staunchest advocates admit has some major drawbacks as a theatrical venue.

The Traverse’s stage management (Sarah Scarlett and Natasha Lee-Walsh) took these drawbacks in their stride, providing vital but unobtrusive support for the engagingly skilful Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon. The two actors inhabited their characters (mainly Helena, a divorce lawyer and Bob, a somewhat dodgy car salesman) so comfortably that it was hard to remember that this was a play and we were sitting in a gymnasium on the wet, rainy west coast of Scotland, not wandering – or running – all over Edinburgh.

Described as ‘a play with songs’, the Traverse (just as as the NTS did with Black Watch) missed a wonderful merchandising opportunity by failing to produce a CD of the music. All there was were copies of the Faber script, which reads like a narrative poem or a postmodern novel. Eschewing convention by leaving lines unassigned, simply separating narrative from realtime dialogue, David Greig effectively hands future directors the freedom to cast it and stage it as they wish. (If only all playwrights were this generous).

There is a question that always arises in any discussion about theatre produced in the Highlands & Islands, namely, “Will it travel?”. This play puts a strong case for a positive answer. Midsummer is so strongly rooted in the Edinburgh of today that the programme insert included a map with the locations of the main events helpfully marked; yet at the heart of the play are so many clear-sighted truths that from Gairloch to Vancouver audiences will laugh in recognition.

Of course, Midsummer is blessed with superb writing – the lightness of touch and the deft delight in language as it is actually spoken and thought was irresistible, not that anyone in the audience was trying to resist. Set design (Georgia McGuinness) was stylised and stylish. From winebar to carpark, from posh flat to ferry, the locations were evoked from the text with little more than a wineglass.

By turns romantic, poignant, earthy, gripping and laugh-out-loud comic, just like the real life it so imaginatively distilled, Midsummer was a delight from beginning to end.

© Jennie Macfie, 2009

Links

• Traverse Theatre
• Jennie Macfie