ELIZABETH GORDON QUINN. To 10 June.
Edinburgh/Aberdeen
ELIZABETH GORDON QUINN
by Chris Hannan
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh To 3 June then
His Majesty's Theatre Aberdeen 6-10 June 2006
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 248 4848 (Edinburgh)
01224 641122 (Aberdeen)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 May
Fine debut for a new National Theatre.
May's been Glasgow tenement month on Scottish stages, with Glasgow Citizens' revival of 1935's No Mean City while the National Theatre Scotland has been touring its first core production, following opening flurries of the multi-identity Home and several co-productions. Chris Hannan's 1985 play, set in a 1915 tenement, has been revised for a revival which opened in Dundee late April and has also visited Glasgow and Perth. No Mean City's solid tenement edges and mean street contrast Neil Warmington's vertiginous, skeletal staircase with separate doors marking the emotional isolation central to Elizabeth's identity, leading up 3 levels to the communal lavatory.
Hannan's scattered political motifs remain peripheral. A rent-strike shows Elizabeth's fierce individuality (she retains the family name 'Gordon' to show her Catholicism is Scots not Irish) and the heightened self-consciousness which keeps family and neighbours at bay. It's a quality that tips into fantasy when dealing with bailiffs and other officials.
Even the earnest McCorquondale's discussion of baby deaths in Glasgow's impoverished districts is mainly used to show Elizabeth's tough-nut daughter Maura moon-eyed and weak-kneed with attraction to the young man; Hannan must be the only dramatist to make infant mortality a subject for humour. Laughs generally in this play are grim, reflecting self-consciousness and inevitable clashes in the tenement.
Among the women, that is, whose minds are firmest-set. The men are nowhere near. After defending the wife who buys roses and music for the piano she cannot play amid dire poverty, William Quinn is snubbed and leaves. Her son, an army abscondee, tests Elizabeth's moral rules, leading to the ultimate crisis.
John Tiffany's production plays all this beautifully, its strongly individualised peerformances combining in a fine ensemble. Cara Kelly's Elizabeth gives nothing away and needs only a moment before rejecting or ignoring opposing views in responses that are glacially polite position-statements.
Billy McColl's William shows a capacity for self-deception but not his wife's iron-will, while as Maura Lesley Hart reflects her mother's stern will without delusions of grandeur. As the neighbours up against Elizabeth, Myra McFadyen's insistent Mrs Black and Pauline Goldsmith's strike-organising Mrs Cunningham are spot-on gems. The men are good too (John Rammage has a fine cameo as a bent-double coal-cellar but) even more than O' Casey's Juno and the Paycock this play belongs to its women. They do it proud, as the NTS does Scotland with this work.
Wiliam Quinn: Billy McColl
Elizabeth Gordon Quinn: Cara Kelly
Special Branch Officer/Sheriff's Officer/Coalman/RSM: John Rammage
Maura Quinn: Lesley Hart
Mrs Black: Myra McFadyen
Mrs Cunningham: Pauline Goldsmith
Dolan/Brogan/Sergeant: Antony Strachan
HYaggerty/McCorquondale: John Kielty
Aidan Quinn: Robin Laing
Director: John Tiffany
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Chahine Yavroyan
Sound/ Composer: David Paul Jones
2006-06-02 14:17:29