Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies ed. by Randall Stevenson & Gavin Wallace (review)

Book Reviews RANDALL STEVENSON & GAVIN WALLACE, eds. Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1996. Pp 240. $22·50, paperback. Randall Stevenson's Introduction to this collection of essays begins with a parody of the opening of Liz Lochhead's Mary Queen ofScots Got her Head Chopped Off: Country: Scotland. Whit like is it?And whit like's its theatres? Ah dinna ken whit like your theatre is. Here's mines. What follows is his own "highly personal" list of greal moments in Scottish theatre from the mid-seventies to the present. The introduction is informed and energetic and stresses the range of achievements in this period, and it might lead a reader to expect a stronger collection of essays than that which follows. I should admit at the outsel thaI my assessment of this book is a product of my own sense of "whit like is Scottish theatre," and I would argue that many of the contributions do not do justice to this innovative body of work and unusual cultural/theatrical milieu. Stevenson charts.the territory in the introductory essay, outlining the dearth of activity in the theatre before the 1970s, and the limitations of the crilical and scholarly debates surrounding it. The volume is devoted to exploring different facets of what he terms the "dramatic renaissance" of the last twentyfive years and contains seventeen short essays, divided into three main sections . Part I, "Slages and Companies," covers topics ranging from the debate about the need for a national theatre in Scotland (a discussion that will sound all too familiar to Canadian readers), the major existing theatre venues, the Edinburgh Festival and significant companies (the Citizens' and 7:84 Scotland ). The fact that the book begins with a consideration of the venues and spaces (physical, cultural and organizational) is interesting in itself and points to phenomena peculiar to the Scottish theatre scene. For example, Mark Fisher considers the degree to which a country's theatre buildings affect its theatrical output, noting both the proliferation of small studio spaces and the reclamation of disused industrial sites such as The Tramway (formerly the Museum of Transport, and before that, a tram factory). David Hutchison discusses the Citizens ' - a venue/company, with a long history of some of Ihe most striking avant-garde productions in the U.K., located in the heart of Glasgow's Gorbals . Part II, "Plays and Playwrights," turns its attention to the drama and includes pieces on language (particularly the use of working-class Scots), motifs and themes in Scottish plays and developments in the work of the most recent crop of playwrights. The pace of the book slows down considerably in this section since the essays tend to read too much like lists, but they offer a 168 Book Reviews useful introduction to major dramatists and tendencies in this period. Part III, "Politics and Practices," takes up questions of genres/styles of theatre , the phenomenon of translation, directing and the economics of playwriting . The essays here are more engaging. Olga Taxidou contributes an interview with John McGrath (who remains as outspoken as ever) and a separate piece on epic theatre in Scotland. David Hutchison appears again in this section and provides an insightful examination of the structural difficulties (in terms of funding and producing venues) facing Scottish dramatists. It may be of interest to readers that he uses Canada Council policies from the 1970S as a model for the kind of affirmative action he would like to see at work in Scotland in the encouragement of indigenous theatre. While the overall structure and concerns of the book are promising, the individual essays do not realize this potential. I looked forward to reading this collection as a way of catching up with developments in Scottish theatre and scholarship. But its contribution is limited, mainly because the essays are too short, general and descriptive to provide much beyond an introductory treatment of the topics they take up (even the bibliography of primary and secondary texts is far from complete). There is also more repetition and overlap between essays than is appropriate for a volume of this length. Some of this is understandable, in that significant people, companies and...