Seven Ages by Hamish Macdonald (2001,2004 & 2007)
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Directed by Matthew Zajac and Hamish MacDonald
“…a timely reminder of how much Scottish theatre needs this strand of Highland-made work, with all its wild surrealism, structural anarchy, passionate lyricism and spiritual openness, if it’s to achieve its full potential”.
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman Performed by Hamish MacDonald & Alyth McCormack (2001), Matthew Zajac and Alyth McCormack (2004 & 2007) Live music by
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All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women are merely players They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts His acts being seven ages From As You Like It by William Shakespeare |
You who are the product of the four elements and seven planets
We are the puppets and the firmament is the puppet master For a time we acted on this stage We went back one by one into the box of oblivion From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam |
Man is called a microcosme
Because he may by his conceptions and words Containe within him the representatives Of what in the whole world is comprehended From Logopandecteision by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty |
Premiered in Inverness at Highland Festival 2001, Seven Ages was originally directed by Matthew Zajac and performed by Alyth McCormack and Hamish MacDonald, with formidable music and Gaelic song accompaniment provided by Mary Ann Kennedy, Ingrid Henderson, Maggie MacDonald, Iain MacFarlane and Bruce MacGregor. The play was remounted for a Scottish tour in 2004 and again in 2007 for Dogstar's first ever trip abroad, to the Ternopil Theatre Festival in Ukraine.
The idea of producing a play around the theme of the Seven Ages of Man was originally proposed by Bruce MacGregor, reasoning that Scottish songs and folklore, in common with the wider world, had much to say about the cycle of life and our journey through it. The idea of life divided into a series of ages is a very old one, reaching back through ancient Greek philosophy and Babylonian astrology, with rites of passage to mark the transition from one age to the next practised by tribal cultures. So the structure was raised against a coastal Highland backdrop, a series of seven plays based on the Seven Ages of Man; birth, discovery, love, war, wisdom, dotage and death.
On a bare circular stage with only an upright wooden kist holding a burning candle, a man and woman appear, reciting the litany of the seven ages, the rhythms of which are picked up and accompanied by a fiddler and harpist who loom like ghostly reflections within a circular portal. As their prologue quickly sweeps from the story of the first settlers delivered to the land from the sea, to a vision of firth-spanning steel bridges and wheeling satellites, the imminent stories and their inhabitants become placed within a timeless range, potently enhanced by the ethereal qualities of David Ramsay’s circular structures and subtle lighting. But from the idyll of the prologue the audience is suddenly thwarted into the vicious and fanatical world of 17th century Scotland, confronted by a man and woman who are pleading, as though to a kirk session, for the clemency of a spae-wife and new mother who have delivered a baby into the world outwith the rites of established religion. As a bitter winter descends and hunger begins to grip, the accused witch and the young mother and her baby become the focus of blame for the woes of a remote community, their story underscored by lullabies, psalms, witches rants and An Taladh - the haunting Gaelic call of the swan. Thus the stage is set for episodic dramas which now move in time, the actors shape-shifting before our eyes through a multiple of roles. The kist has disgorged its costumes and Mary MacMaster’s beautiful singing gives way to the baroque maestoso of Jonny Hardie’s Hannah, accompanied on harp, as the leaping, foppish Restoration figure of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty dances to the stage, confronting himself in childhood, reliving both his own formative years and those of his finest literary work – the infant Gargantua whom he has translated from the works of Rabelais, and whose childhood genius was realised by his marvellous discovery of the perfect arsewipe, which was the soft, downy neck of a goose, if held between your legs.
Walking through this world are many characters; the lonely novelist who finds love when a Jewish refugee comes to work on a nearby farm, his unrequited passion told through the desolate voice of a translated Gaelic song, as waves beat endlessly on the shore below his window. Wartime moves to the near future, dwelling inside a hospital ward alongside ex-soldier Kenny from the 2003 war in Iraq, his visiting girlfriend reliving the memory of his going and returning, their world turned upside down, the soldier revisiting the nightmare of his campaign. In the lead-up to war Kenny reflects upon the heroic role played by Highland soldiers in battles throughout the centuries, of his own family’s military history and of how he is bound by tradition to serve. Off Went the Handsome Lads, a Gaelic song which tells of local boys marching off to the killing fields of World War One, introduces and closes the story.
Coloured by music akin to the accompaniment of silent movies, Wisdom moves uphill to a navvy camp submerged below a reservoir, raising the story of Dan the Leg, the wooden-limbed hero who challenges the brutal Scobie to a contest and beats him against all the odds, a true hero whose name is known throughout the land. As the play ages and the years accelerate from middle age into dotage, a prostitute meets a derelict on the streets of Glasgow whose memories reach back to a love affair in his coastal Highland town sixty years ago. It is the derelict who tells the story of the last act of all, an enactment of one of Scotland’s and the world’s greatest stories, Death in a Nut.
The play was performed at Eden Court Theatre and toured throughout the Highlands and Islands, also visiting venues such as G12 Theatre in Glasgow and Mountstuart in Bute, and two sell-out performances at Traverse 2, Edinburgh.
The production was supported by a project grant from the Highland Producers’ Fund with additional support from the Chase Charity.
The idea of producing a play around the theme of the Seven Ages of Man was originally proposed by Bruce MacGregor, reasoning that Scottish songs and folklore, in common with the wider world, had much to say about the cycle of life and our journey through it. The idea of life divided into a series of ages is a very old one, reaching back through ancient Greek philosophy and Babylonian astrology, with rites of passage to mark the transition from one age to the next practised by tribal cultures. So the structure was raised against a coastal Highland backdrop, a series of seven plays based on the Seven Ages of Man; birth, discovery, love, war, wisdom, dotage and death.
On a bare circular stage with only an upright wooden kist holding a burning candle, a man and woman appear, reciting the litany of the seven ages, the rhythms of which are picked up and accompanied by a fiddler and harpist who loom like ghostly reflections within a circular portal. As their prologue quickly sweeps from the story of the first settlers delivered to the land from the sea, to a vision of firth-spanning steel bridges and wheeling satellites, the imminent stories and their inhabitants become placed within a timeless range, potently enhanced by the ethereal qualities of David Ramsay’s circular structures and subtle lighting. But from the idyll of the prologue the audience is suddenly thwarted into the vicious and fanatical world of 17th century Scotland, confronted by a man and woman who are pleading, as though to a kirk session, for the clemency of a spae-wife and new mother who have delivered a baby into the world outwith the rites of established religion. As a bitter winter descends and hunger begins to grip, the accused witch and the young mother and her baby become the focus of blame for the woes of a remote community, their story underscored by lullabies, psalms, witches rants and An Taladh - the haunting Gaelic call of the swan. Thus the stage is set for episodic dramas which now move in time, the actors shape-shifting before our eyes through a multiple of roles. The kist has disgorged its costumes and Mary MacMaster’s beautiful singing gives way to the baroque maestoso of Jonny Hardie’s Hannah, accompanied on harp, as the leaping, foppish Restoration figure of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty dances to the stage, confronting himself in childhood, reliving both his own formative years and those of his finest literary work – the infant Gargantua whom he has translated from the works of Rabelais, and whose childhood genius was realised by his marvellous discovery of the perfect arsewipe, which was the soft, downy neck of a goose, if held between your legs.
Walking through this world are many characters; the lonely novelist who finds love when a Jewish refugee comes to work on a nearby farm, his unrequited passion told through the desolate voice of a translated Gaelic song, as waves beat endlessly on the shore below his window. Wartime moves to the near future, dwelling inside a hospital ward alongside ex-soldier Kenny from the 2003 war in Iraq, his visiting girlfriend reliving the memory of his going and returning, their world turned upside down, the soldier revisiting the nightmare of his campaign. In the lead-up to war Kenny reflects upon the heroic role played by Highland soldiers in battles throughout the centuries, of his own family’s military history and of how he is bound by tradition to serve. Off Went the Handsome Lads, a Gaelic song which tells of local boys marching off to the killing fields of World War One, introduces and closes the story.
Coloured by music akin to the accompaniment of silent movies, Wisdom moves uphill to a navvy camp submerged below a reservoir, raising the story of Dan the Leg, the wooden-limbed hero who challenges the brutal Scobie to a contest and beats him against all the odds, a true hero whose name is known throughout the land. As the play ages and the years accelerate from middle age into dotage, a prostitute meets a derelict on the streets of Glasgow whose memories reach back to a love affair in his coastal Highland town sixty years ago. It is the derelict who tells the story of the last act of all, an enactment of one of Scotland’s and the world’s greatest stories, Death in a Nut.
The play was performed at Eden Court Theatre and toured throughout the Highlands and Islands, also visiting venues such as G12 Theatre in Glasgow and Mountstuart in Bute, and two sell-out performances at Traverse 2, Edinburgh.
The production was supported by a project grant from the Highland Producers’ Fund with additional support from the Chase Charity.
