PETER Arnott is a playwright of considerable curiosity and breadth of interests.
His oeuvre encompasses the decadent underbelly of Victorian Edinburgh (The Breathing House), one of the greatest female figures in the 1960s generation of rock music pioneers (Janis Joplin: Full Tint) and the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879 (The Signalman). His latest work, Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape, is set on the eve of Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum.
It is a work that addresses a host of big ideas, ranging from the constitutional future of Scotland to the existential crisis in which humanity has placed itself. It is also a play about the anguished present and the indelible imprint of memory that accompany human relations.
In his grand home in Highland Perthshire, historian professor Rennie, a respected and resented mentor, and a former Communist (played with glorious arrogance by the superb John Michie) has assembled an awkwardly arranged collection of family members and acquaintances.
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As in certain plays by Anton Chekhov (such as The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters) or Thomas Vinterberg’s film Festen (all of which have echoes in Arnott’s piece), it would be inaccurate to categorise all of these people as “loved ones”. Rather – from Rennie’s estranged wife Edie (the brilliantly sceptical Deirdre Davis) to his daughter Emma (played with painfully torn emotions by Sally Reid) and TV talking head Charlie (Matthew Trevannion, nailing the obnoxious cynicism of the 21st-century far right) – they are people of significance to Rennie.
All of the proceedings are haunted (visibly to the audience) by the ghost of Rennie and Edie’s son Will (Robbie Scott performing an agonised choreography). Will’s death in young adulthood frames the difficult, sometimes mangled relations between the characters.
Rennie’s purpose in gathering these people together is revealed in Act 2. I, however, would not reveal it, not even for ready money or the opportunity to kick Laurence Fox in a sore place.
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Suffice it to say that the professor’s announcement is Chekhovian in nature, and, as in a Chekhov play, it has a catalysing effect on the drama. The Chekhovian aspect of the play extends into the density of its writing, and, indeed, the historic loyalties and rivalries (and the consequent current-day disappointments) of a diverse array of characters (who are played with universal excellence by a cast that is completed by Patricia Panther, Keith Macpherson, Nalini Chetty and Benny Young).
The acclaimed dramatist David Greig directs (for Pitlochry Festival Theatre and his own Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh) with great respect for the balance required between the play’s dramatic momentum and its meditative dimension. Jessica Worrall’s set (which is dominated by a grand vista of the Highland landscape) is impressively functional and unobtrusive.
This is, then, a drama that echoes Chekhov as it draws us into territory that is simultaneously intellectual, political, psychological and emotional. And, like a Chekhov piece, the play offers us no easy resolution.
Pitlochry run ended. At Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, October 4-14: lyceum.org.uk
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