___________________________________________________
JOYCE MCMILLAN on ONE DAY IN SPRING, AND THE NEW PLAY, PIE AND PINT SEASON for Scotsman Arts Magazine, 19 January 2012
___________________________________________________
IN A SYRIAN CITY riven by protest and violence, a young woman film-maker tries to persuade people to give their testimony, direct to the camera. In an empty theatre in Beirut, two men hide from the latest border conflict between Israel and Lebanon. And in Morocco, an everyman type called Hassan finds himself accidentally present at all the major recent events of his country’s history; but is it him, or his female soulmate and other self, Hada?
And no, these are not out-takes from recent news stories, or reflections from From Our Own Correspondent; they are, instead, the semi-fictional situations that drive three of the six brand-new plays from across the Middle East that will be staged at Oran Mor in Glasgow and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, as part of a packed 19-show season of lunchtime Play, Pie and Pint productions, which also includes a special celebration of the 250th play presented in the lunchtime series since it began, seven and a half years ago.
Founded, produced and masterminded by Wildcat veteran David MacLennan, A Play, A Pie And A Pint has become one of the essential features of the Scottish theatre landscape since its first autumn season in 2004; but this Spring, there’s a special mood of excitement, as it looks outward towards the countries shaken and stirred by the momentous Arab Spring events that began to sweep through Tunisia and Egypt, a year ago this month.
“It was around this time last year,” says leading Scottish playwright David Greig, who is curating the One Day In Spring season for A Play, A Pie And A Pint. “The National Theatre of Scotland was working with David MacLennan on a six-show series of plays from Latin America; and David and I just thought, when we were talking one day, that we had to do this same thing with young writers from the Middle East and North Africa, as soon as we could. The NTS were really up for it,; and the British Council came on board too, helping the writers to be in Scotland during the season.
“I had been working with young writers from the region for years, particularly in Syria and Egypt, and so I already had a lot of contacts there. David MacLennan’s only condition was that we look for brand new work; so we started asking them to send us their latest stuff, that would possibly fit the 50-minute lunchtime format.
“Because they were mainly students when I first met them, most of the writers I know across the Middle East and North Africa are in their twenties. But that feels right, because they are the huge, bulging generation, across the whole region, who really feel the fierce frustration of a system that seems to shut them out; and who are usually in the front line of the protests. I think they do speak for their own societies, in a vital way; and I also think they speak for a whole generation, across the planet, who seem to have been robbed of their future through no fault of their own.”
Greig is quick to point out, though, that there’s even more to the One Day In Spring than four 50-minute plays by young writers. He and MacLennan are also putting together two compilation pieces, one in the form of a series of letters to Glasgow from older writers in the region, and the other – the title show One Day In Spring – featuring a series of 24 two-minute plays from writers right cross the region, one for each hour of a long spring day. There will also be debates with food from the countries involved, and the chance of seeing two existing shows from the region, which may be brought to the Tron Theatre in May, with the support of the NTS.
“There are no guarantees about any of this,” says Greig. “The work is genuinely new, and quite rough. As a whole, though, I really hope the season will work. It’s like a counterpoint to the idea of 24 hour rolling news, which gives you constant coverage of these events, but very much from the outside, looking in; this gives you a view from the inside, looking out. And suddenly – at last – there seems to be this huge hunger from audiences in the west to hear those voices, and to understand what’s going on, across these societies.”
It’s a tribute to the huge vitality of the Play, Pie And Pint phenomenon, though, that the One Day In Spring season represents less than one-third of the work in a Spring programme that also includes new plays by Jo Clifford, Peter Arnott, Alan Wilkins, and Peter MacDougall, and a first-ever Oran Mor play by Mel Giedroyc of Mel And Sue.
“Am I surprised to be staging our 250th show?” laughs MacLennan, who plans to mark the occasion by launching a celebratory fund for new writers, backed by an initial £10,000 of profits from this year’s hugely successful Oran Mor panto. “I’m not surprised, I’m staggered. If you had told me back in 2004 that we would be playing to 150 people every day, in a pub in the West End of Glasgow, I would have said you were mad
“Yet that’s about the level we’ve reached, now; and the box-office income it brings gives me a degree of freedom which is great. And the other thing that has slowly developed, and is a great joy to me, is this growing willingness of the audience to go anywhere. There are things I do now that I would never have dreamed of doing back in that first season. Because what I’ve learned is that once you build up this strong connection with an audience, everything becomes possible. Their appetite for new experiences is astonishing; and it means we can do so much more than I ever imagined, seven years ago.”
The Play Pie And Pint season opens at Oran Mor on 30 January, with Jo Clifford’s Sex, Chips And The Holy Ghost. The One Day In Spring season opens at Oran Mor on 16 April, and at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 24 April; and runs until 2 June.
ENDS ENDS
Posted in Other Theatre Writing