HAMISH MACDONALD reports on Dogstar Theatre’s participation in the international Contemporary Myths project.

IT’S the of 11^th June 1978 and I’m casting a fly on a hill-loch. As the day wears on a voice is telling me that I should be back down the hill, finding a pub with a telly and taking in the Scotland v Holland game.

But the hubris of that inglorious Argentina campaign, the opening 3-1 defeat to Peru, the turgid 1-1 draw with Iran, Willie Johnston’s failed drugs test, has sent me into self-imposed exile for the day. Just a year before we’d gone to Wembley on a clapped-out bus, witnessed the 2-1 victory, the appropriation of the famous goalposts.

(We’d actually suffered a miserable Home Nations tournament just a couple of weeks before going to Argentina, drawing with Ireland and Wales then losing to England, but somehow that one quickly erased itself from the memory).

Hamish MacDonald (photo by Santiago Posada)

It’s Saturday 12^th of February 2011 and I’m in Tehran, representing Dogstar Theatre Company at the 29^th Fadjr International Theatre Festival. Scarcely did I ever reckon that a mildly depressed 19 year old, hiding out in the hills agonising over whether to go and watch Scotland v Holland, would one day find his way here, or that these two brief moments in a personal history might ever be connected.

It is a tense time to be in Tehran, not only because of strained diplomatic relations between our countries, but also because our arrival has coincided with planned protests on Monday 14^th February. Waiting to board the flight at Heathrow we watch reports on President Mubarak’s resignation in Egypt, there has been unrest in Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen.

Despite the underlying tension there is an atmosphere of normality, which in a day in the city of Tehran means the convergence of some twelve million souls, a mass of traffic that stops, starts, meets, cuts in, cuts up, belching tons of lead and carbon monoxide towards a clear blue mountain sky, there is a constant roaring of motorcycles – those that can’t find a way through will occasionally pass you on the pavement.

The nocturnal population is said to fall to eight million. In our hotel – where I’m to be domiciled with fellow delegates from the UK, and with theatre makers and promoters from Cordoba to County Tipperaray – descending to the foyer I immediately recognise a familiar face on Iranian TV.

In what looks to be a current affairs discussion there is the sun-tanned visage of George Galloway, gleaming like a well-polished ceramic ornament, though as to what the dandy Dundonian might be saying I have no idea – and make no attempt to ascertain.

It is a real pleasure to meet the people of this city who are consistently accommodating and civil. We meet our Fadjr Festival hosts at Vadhat Hall, the Centre for Dramatic Arts in Iran, where over the next few days we’re scheduled to meet up and discuss the work of Iranian producers and directors and watch some films of their work.

During the day of protests, taking place only a matter of a few hundred metres away, we find ourselves confined to the hall. Phone and internet coverage go down and we can only guess as to what is happening outside. Venturing into the early evening we find the city quietened and patrolled by a heavy police and militia presence.

Each evening we head out to the theatres, taking in a highly varied programme of plays, both text-based and performance work; there is some European drama too, but most is performed in Farsi with English titles. These courageous performances are attended by packed-out audiences and it is easy to recognise that theatre beats at the heart of the young people of Tehran.

Hassan Madjouni, Hamish MacDonald and Irene Allen

While in Iran I’ve had the opportunity to meet briefly with our colleagues of Leev Theatre Group, one of Tehran’s most inventive and respected theatre companies. Matthew Zajac of Dogstar had already met up with one of their directors, Sasan Pirouz, at the Thespis Theatre Festival in Kiel, Germany, just a few months before while performing there with The Tailor of Inverness.

It had been suggested then that we might look to some possible collaboration between the two companies, then in January 2011 we applied to take part in Visiting Arts Contemporary Myths project, a venture that over the past two years has seen the coming together of three UK/Iranian collaborations, all of which have developed potential for some very interesting and original work.

For the Dogstar/Leev collaboration, on further discussions with Sasan Pirouz and Hassan Madjouni, we decided to look at the global phenomenon of football as the possible basis for a play. We remember that there was once a game between Scotland and Iran, in Argentina in 1978.

In collaboration at Dartington – Arash (the translator), Irene Allan, Hamish, and Leev's Sasan Pirouz and Hassan Madjouni

Visiting Arts Contemporary Myths project brought us back together in May, in the green and gentle setting of Dartington Arts Centre in Devon. I was joined there by Scottish actress Irene Allan, while Leev Theatre Group were represented by Hassan and Sasan. We talked a great deal over the possible setting of a play, about character, language, anecdote, national characteristics, similarities and absurdities, boasts, vanities, insecurities, shortcomings, political intrigues, conspiracies, the Iran goalscorers of 1978, the collusion of the England football manager in Scotland’s downfall.

We watched various clips on YouTube, the Ally MacLeod dugout shot with head in hands, as if caught in the deneoument of a classic tragedy. Over and over, much to the intrigue of our Iranian friends, we watched Archie Gemmil’s classic goal against Holland. We looked at national figures of the past, heroes and mythologies, to those of the globalised present, Lady Gaga, the iconic Ronaldo with his corrugated physique, idolised in the form of a plastic doll.

We thought of setting a play in a sports café in present day Istanbul, with the 1978 Scotland-Iran game forming a historical backdrop. At the end of the week we had the opportunity to present an outline of the piece and read an extract of our work to the other collaborative companies and to an invited audience at Farnham Maltings Arts Centre in Surrey, and to see something of the other three works in progress.

And so I’m recalling that moment thirty 33 years ago, packing away the fishing rod then heading down to a village pub. Scotland were 2-1 up against Holland in the final match of the group stages of the World Cup. Archie Gemmil took the ball then jinked past three defenders, sending it gracefully over the sprawling Dutch keeper into the net. One more goal and we would qualify for the next stages. For five minutes it had felt that anything was possible, that we might go from world’s worst to world’s best, from humiliation to ecstasy.

That was until Jonny Rep sent a thirty-yard screamer flying past the hapless, permed Alan Rough. But we can always erase that one from the memory – and look to better times. Since its inception this little theatre company has taken us across borders we could never have dreamed of, from Highland Scotland to Australia, through Europe and Eastern Europe and recently to the Middle East.

We look to future possibilities to develop theatrical work with Leev Theatre Group and doubtless there are a great many challenges ahead. But as Archie Gemmil has shown, on that Sunday evening of 1978, for five minutes at least, anything can seem possible.

Hamish MacDonald and Dogstar Theatre Company are grateful to Visiting Arts, to Hi-Arts and the Scottish Playwrights Studio for their contributions which helped make our visit to the Fadjr Festival and the Contemporary Myths collaborative week at Dartington possible.

© Hamish MacDonald, 2011

Links

• Dogstar Theatre
• Visiting Arts
• Leev Theatre