Sunset
Song -
Touring Production
Prime Productions are to tour a larger production to
bigger venues in autummn 2002 with many of the same cast.
Adapter - Alastair Cording of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song
Director -Benjamin Twist
Designer: Neil Warmington
Musical Director: Dougal Lee
Company - Prime Productions
Venues and Dates - Originally taken on a massive tour
round Scotland Mainland and Islands 8 March to 5 May 2001 Prime Productions
are to tour a larger production to bigger venues in autummn 2002 with
many of the same cast.
Reviewed at Brunton Theatre 7 March 2001
Reviewer Maureen Sangster
This dramatisation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song is touring
when, with the foot and mouth scare, people are having to reconsider
their relationship to the land and to the animals reared upon it. Through
the eyes of the heroine Chris Guthrie, we see a rural peasant crofting
community that respects the land, and does not through greed or commercial
demands, wrench from it more than it can give. This balance between
people and nature is shattered by the First World War. Men go to the
trenches and return brutalised here portrayed, with searing honesty,
by Douglas Russell as Ewan Tavendale, Chris's husband. The war
scenes, staged impressionalistically, are among the best and made me
cry.
The adaptation does justice to the vibrancy of a community, often gossipy
but pulling together in hard times. Fast-paced scenes, excellent ensemble
acting with actors playing many parts shows the interchangeability of
people, how they speak with one voice. Alan McHugh, whose main
role is as Chae Strachan, a neighbour of Chris's and Estrid Barton
whose main role is as her mother Jean Guthrie are particularly good
at the canny droll humour of the Mearns where the play is set. They
are also a joy to listen to, having the Scots accent of that area to
perfection.
The Chris of this production was not 'my Chris'. I learnt as the play
went on to forgo the image I had of her from the book, a favourite of
mine. Cora Bissett plays Chris with directness showing her indomitable
spirit. She is a very earthy Chris and the love scenes she plays are
enchanting. What I missed was a more troubled Chris, a Chris in conflict
between the two sides of her being, the English Chris and the Scots
Chris but I don't think that struggle was developed in Alastair Cording's
text. I suppose I missed a Chris in touch with the melancholy in the
Scots character.
A real bonus is the music performed by an accomplished cast, with original
songs by Dougie Maclean, the solos sung with intensity by Cora Bissett.
This is an exciting energetic production. Tommy Mullins is an
engaging Will Guthrie, Dougal Lee an ironic Long Rob and Stewart
Porter brings off a real tour de force as Chris's father John Guthrie,
a tormented dark character whose religion lives uneasily with his passions.
On until Saturday at the Brunton and then continuing its extensive tour
round Scotalnd, this Sunset Song guarantees an emotional experience
for its audience.
© Maureen Sangster 8 March 2001
Review of the 2002
production
