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Dateline: 27th August, 2006
The National Theatre of Scotland David Chadderton reports on a discussion at the Edinburgh International Book FestivalThe first weekend of the Book Festival hosted a discussion panel on the new National Theatre of Scotland, featuring the company's artistic director Vicky Featherstone, Guardian theatre critic Lynn Gardner and Scottish artist and playwright John Byrne (Writer's Cramp, The Slab Boys Trilogy, Tutti Frutti). The debate over whether Scotland should have its own national theatre has gone on for many years and many people were sceptical about whether it would work, including John Byrne who pictured it as a building showing dull and wordy plays from years ago. He was surprised when an English woman, Vicky Featherstone, was appointed as artistic director, leaving her former post as artistic director of new writing theatre company Paines Plough, and even more surprised - and thrilled - when she called him about putting his TV series Tutti Frutti on stage as a NTS production. Featherstone brought a lot of her experiences with Paines Plough with her to the NTS, especially the concepts of not being a building-based company and creating co-productions with other theatre companies in different locations. She believes that a building can create a fixed identity that can put off people who do not see themselves as belonging to a theatre-going community, thereby making the company elitist and unable to reach a large part of the Scottish people. Lynn Gardner agreed that the National Theatre in London (which, she pointed out, keeps trying to drop its 'Royal' prefix) has to commit huge resources just to keep its building, a "huge concrete art bunker" on the South Bank, running before any productions are created. The building also has a certain image that is difficult to get over even though NT artistic director Nick Hytner has done a great deal of work to encourage new audiences, but she said that performers, as well as audiences, often see the building as elitist and unwelcoming, a place they have to be invited to. Although the NT does work with other groups from conventional theatre companies in its theatres to other performance groups such as Shunt in the spaces outside, their relationship tends to be more one of ownership by the NT and not as generous as the co-productions created by the NTS. She believes that Hytner and others in London will be looking to see what happens at the NTS with a great deal of interest. There was a great deal of speculation about what the first NTS production would be, and Featherstone felt that no one production could survive this pressure. She therefore conceived an opening night in which ten different shows would open simultaneously in different areas of Scotland in very different types of performance space, each with a different co-producing partner. This event, titled Home, took place on 25 February in Aberdeen, Dundee, Caithness, Dumfries, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Shetland and Stornoway in non-theatre venues ranging from an 18-storey tower block to an old factory building. After this explosive debut, the young company has been looking for its signature productions its first season, which Featherstone believes it has found in Black Watch by Greg Burke, co-produced by the Traverse at the University of Edinburgh Drill Hall during the Fringe Festival, and Tutti Frutti by John Byrne, co-produced with His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, for performance in September. Preparations are beginning on a production of Schiller's Mary Stuart, a classic non-Scottish play on a historical subject with a great deal of relevance for Scotland, in a new adaptation by Scottish playwright David Harrower. Black Watch has already made a huge impact, receiving five stars from every critic who has seen it, including Lynn Gardner, who said that if she met the men portrayed in the play on a dark night she would cross the road, but the play made her feel that she loved them. She said that these men know exactly what is going on on the ground in Iraq - bullying, not soldiering. No advance plans were made to take the production further as it was all based just on stories told to writer Greg Burke in a pub by former members of the regiment and so the company had no idea how it would be received. In view of the reception it is likely to tour extensively in Scotland and further afield. Director John Tiffany, who was in the audience for this session, claimed that the production has attracted more than just a festival audience as, like Burke's first play Gargarin Way, people who do not usually believe theatre to be for them have felt quite comfortable going to see it. There is a huge amount of pride in Scotland for the country's military history, and the play has been seen and endorsed by former members of the Black Watch Regiment, including some of those portrayed in the play. Apart from the large-scale productions, the NTS Ensemble will tour village halls throughout Scotland with six actors in three pieces of theatre: Zinnie Harris's Julie - based on Strindberg's Miss Julie - for adults, Mancub - adapted by Douglas Maxwell from The Flight of the Cassowary by John Levert - for young people and Gobbo in the Adventures of Gobbo and the Watchmaker by David Greig and Wils Wilson for children. NTS Young Company, consisting of a director, two producers and four actors, all just beginning their theatre careers, will create three pieces to tour, mentored by NTS. Featherstone wants the company to provide an experimental area for any artists, not just theatre artists, so that they can try out new work. Featherstone said that to a large extent, programming the first season was easy; continuing to take risks and to find new and innovative work and methods of production will be much more difficult, and the worry about continuing what the first season has promised is what keeps her awake at night. Byrne agreed that risk-taking is important, saying that as soon as they get complacent they will be 'sunk', but Gardner said that although funding is an issue to some extent, risk taking is largely 'in the head'. When asked how she would like to see the company in ten years' time, Lynn Gardner envisions an inclusive theatre that values everyone's contributions, that wants to explore every society and that is international and fun. Vicky Featherstone, should she still be there in ten years' time, would like the company to still be taking risks that are paying off for audiences, but most of all she would like the company to have made the most of the opportunity to create something special for Scotland from scratch. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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