Seven Ages - Discovery - Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty - Ternopil Theatre Festival
THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS - KRAWIEC Z INVERNESS at the EDINBURGH FESTIVAL this summer
Matthew Zajac's new play, The Tailor of Inverness will premiere this summer at the Assembly Rooms, one of the top venues on the Edinburgh Fringe. Matthew will perform the play himself with a live fiddle score from Gavin Marwick and Jonny Hardie, two of Scotland's best traditional musicians. The production will be directed by Ben Harrison, best known for his acclaimed work with Grid Iron Theatre Company. Design is by Ali Maclaurin. The production will also feature an exciting video and sound design.
“I come from the Soviets and the Nazis. I come from a farm, from the forests and fields of green Ukraine, from the ruins of Germany, from the beaches of the Adriatic, from the grimy streets of Glasgow and the cool air of Inverness.”
Tailor. Soldier. Fugitive. Man. Crossing the borders from Ukraine to Poland to Iran to Egypt to Italy to Germany to Scotland,
The Tailor of Inverness reflects on several major conflicts in twentieth century history but is personal, intimate and rooted in two cultures: Galicia and the Highlands of Scotland.
Performed by an actor at the peak of his powers, The Tailor of Inverness promises to be a moving and memorable event.
Previews at The Arches , Glasgow July 29th & 30th 2008
Runs at The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh July 31st to August 24th 2008
The Tailor of Inverness will undertake a Scottish tour in February and March 2009.
This production is supported by The Scottish Arts Council.
SEVEN AGES in UKRAINE
The company recently returned from a memorable trip to Ukraine, where we performed Hamish MacDonald's Seven Ages to standing ovations at the Ternopil Theatre Festival and at the Lviv Young People's Theatre. Our promoters and hosts have invited us back and we hope to return for a more extensive tour of Ukraine and possibly Poland. We are very grateful to Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Scottish & Newcastle, who made the visit possible. Here's Hamish's report:
Cold November night on the Polish/Ukrainian frontier and Dogstar Theatre Company is couped together, six of us into a Renault van. We’ve been transported at an alarming rate - a motion described by one of the cast as being like a speedy hurl in giant shopping trolley - from the unbelievably beautiful Polish city of Krakow. Our driver Xenon has obviously crossed this border before, he has a word with the soldiers and before long we’re through. Into Ukraine and we start up singing. Maybe it’s relief that we’re going to make it to the Ternopil Theatre Festival after all. The road to Lochinver was never quite like this.
We’ve come to Ukraine with the financial assistance of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries, Hi-Arts, Highlands and Island Enterprise and the Scottish Arts Council. Our Ukrainian promoters in the cities of Ternopil and L’viv have also helped out with fees and expenses. The journey began back in 2003 when Matthew Zajac, joint artistic director of Dogstar Theatre, made a journey to western Ukraine to research the early part of his father’s life. There he discovered stories of conflict, of suffering and reconciliation, themes that will be weaved into Matthew’s powerful new play, The Tailor of Inverness, to be toured by Dogstar throughout Scotland in 2008. It was while visiting relatives in the city of Ternopil Matthew found the annual theatre festival. He met up with Sasha Papusha, a leading actor at the Shevchenko Theatre and a good English speaker. For the past three years Matthew and Sasha have been trying to find a way for us to perform Seven Ages, a play that last toured Scotland in 2004. Now we’re finally there, with an official invite from the Minister of Culture, our name spelled out in Cyrillic letters. We’re part of a heady programme of events, fourteen plays over six days, joining theatre companies from the likes of Kiev, Poland and Crimea. The performances take place between two wonderful theatres, the Shevchenko and the Ternopil Childrens Theatre, with only a few minutes walk between the two.
Theatre is a vital strand of Ukrainian culture. The performances of skomorokhs, vagrant dramatic players, are recorded as far back as the 11th century. Religious drama, akin to the passion and morality plays of western Europe, played a role in the development and spread of religion. The Shevchenko Theatre where we’re performing – named after Ukraine’s national poet – had a company founded by Les Kurbas, one of the nation’s best known dramatists. Kurbas was imprisoned and shot under Stalin’s orders in 1937. In recent years of independence, Ukraine is finding a resurgent voice through theatre. Ternopil is one of seven international annual theatre festivals now on offer. Against such a background, performing a play in a foreign language, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. But even with a twelve noon start the studio theatre at Shevchenko is fit to bursting, the 120 seats are taken and more are being crammed into the aisles. The festival judges, weel-kent figures from the theatre world, are introduced one by one to the audience and roundly applauded, another indication of the esteem in which drama is regarded in this country.
Seven Ages follows a path through some three hundred years, from a Highland witch trial to the war in Iraq. The stories are thematically linked by music, lullabies, love songs, military tunes, laments etc., adapted from the Gaelic and Scottish traditions. Then not far into the performance it’s apparent that the audience is engaging not only with the musical and visual elements of the piece but with language too: there are laughs (thankfully) in the right places, some unexpected laughs, and the murmur of translations going on between scenes as a story is quickly condensed and explained. It’s unusual but it’s working. We’re taken aback by the audience response at the end of the play, a lengthy standing ovation with flowers, chocolates and ceramic trophy presented to our beaming performers.
After the performance we’re taken for a meal with our hosts and the judges, to experience something in which Ukraine is probably unsurpassed; hospitality. Successive toasts are given, it’s vodka of course. To our delight we are not only toasted for the play and its performance, but invited back to Ternopil 2008. Once again it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed.
In the same day we’re taken to see another two perfomances, by a company from Ivano-Frankivsk and from Elblag near Gdansk. Beautifully crafted sets and lighting designs. Elegant costumes. Refined and relaxed performances by Ukrainian and Polish actors. To round off the day a reception is given on a marbled floor of Shevchenko and we’re invited by the local cultural minister to undertake a bigger tour of the region in 2008. Later the vodka begins to flow in spate. Puirt a Beul meets Ukrainian folk song. Wandering souls get lost in the bowels of the theatre. (You can always trust the Scottish…)
And so to the beautiful city of L’viv. Promoter Andriy Scharaskin has succeeded in filling the three-hundred capacity Young People’s Theatre. In the afternoon we’re taken to the stunning L’viv Opera House. Hilary Clinton and Michael Palin have made it here before us. The theatre is preparing for a gig by Nino Katamadze, known as the Georgian Goddess of Jazz. The Opera House holds a thousand and I’m amazed we’ve an audience at all, but L’viv feels like a place where art lives and breathes.
Andriy has promoted our show at the universities and when the audience arrives its comprised of around eighty percent beautiful young women. Many are English or drama students. The performance goes like a dream. At its conclusion, they rise to their feet for another standing ovation. A wet Tuesday night in Dornie Hall was never like this. After the show we’re taken by Andriy and co to a theme bar extraordinaire, modelled on a bunker occupied by the Ukrainian resistance movement who fought the Soviet invasion. The staff are togged out in paramilitary uniforms, food is served up in mess-tins, pistols are handed around and blanks fired into the air. The bevvy of choice is a vodka/honey combination appropriately called smeddum. The toasts go round. There is a power cut. Candles are lit. The singing starts up. Here we go again. We’ll be back in Inverness in two nights time. But here’s to Ukraine 2008. Here’s hoping.
Hamish MacDonald, 11th November 2007
In 2007 – 2008…
'e POLISH QUINE
The company toured Scotland for six weeks during
May and June 2007 with Henry Adam’s beautiful and moving play
‘e Polish Quine
.
“Dogstar Theatre’s dark and powerful new touring production… imaginatively directed … beautifully written…” Kenny Mathieson, The Herald
“Well directed with a top-class script, Adam’s reworking of a much earlier project is highly recommended.” Peter Thomson, The Big Issue
Magdalena Kaleta & Fraser Sivewright
in
'e Polish Quine 2007
“…Adam is deservedly gaining a reputation as one of Scotland’s most ambitious dramatists…the stark, beautiful poetry of its telling are embraced and delivered with much style by a fine cast… Dogstar takes us deep into the heart of our nation (and) is proving to be one of Scotland’s most important new writing companies. See this play if you can.”
George Gunn, John O’Groat Journal
“…a rich, responsible and deeply poetic piece of work…Matthew Zajac and Dogstar are to be congratulated on a gallant, heartfelt attempt to give this major play the public platform it deserves.” Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
Dogstar receives project funding support from the Scottish Arts Council and Highlands & Islands Enterprise.