On tour, Western Isles 2006
Our next production - 2008
The Tailor of Inverness by Matthew Zajac
Directed by Ben Harrison
The Tailor is playing with a wooden acrobat toy
- Clever that how it works. You squeeze below. You squeeze him and he jumps.
Never fails. You keep squeezin’, he keep movin’.
The Tailor of Inverness is a play for one actor with live music. It is the story of how a boy who grew up on a farm in Galicia (Eastern Poland, now Western Ukraine) came to be a tailor in Inverness, of how a life and an identity can be reconstructed.
The tailor’s life spanned most of the 20th century, and the journey he took was made by thousands of Poles during the Second World War. His was a forced migration, subject to the brutal vagaries of war. He travelled and fought through Poland, the Soviet Union, Persia, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Italy, Austria, Germany, France and England before settling in Scotland.
In a new country, he became a new man. There was no going back. He integrated himself into the fabric of Highland life. And fabric was perhaps the most important medium through which he achieved this. He made a variety of clothes for thousands of people, including himself, constructing the outward trappings which play a part in defining who we are. This man’s story is not straightforward. He was one of millions whose fate was determined by massive upheavals over which he had no control. But was he really who he said he was ?
The Tailor of Inverness will combine storytelling, a meditation on identity, moving and still video projections, costume and choreographed movement. It will evoke the diversity of the tailor’s life through theatrical imagery: a sleigh pursued by wolves, boys playing with explosives, Masonic ritual, Polish folk dancing, an endless train journey. Sound will play an important role: dogs howling, Polish marching songs, popular Scottish ballads, the train and the voices of lost relatives calling from a lost world.
The production will tour throughout Scotland during 2008 with support from the Scottish Arts Council. Tour details to follow.
New projects
Dogstar is developing an exciting slate of new projects for production in the coming years, working with some of Scotland’s best writers. Details will come online as these projects take shape.
New writing is at the heart of the company’s work. We aim to develop this by commencing a series of playwriting workshops in the Highlands. Aspiring playwrights will be nurtured and encouraged to produce short and full-length plays. A play is not complete without actors and an audience, so we will give playwrights the opportunity to experiment with and develop their work using professional and student actors in workshops and readings.