ONE of Scotland’s most influential plays returns this month 45 years after its original tour.
The Cheviot, The Stag, and The Black, Black Oil will visit rural venues across Scotland and community spaces in Dundee, where director Joe Douglas’s 2015 re-staging of the landmark play broke box office records at the city’s Rep Theatre.
The tour, co-presented by the National Theatre of Scotland, will be the third revival of the playful, highly political retelling of Scotland’s history, from the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries to the 1970s oil boom, by John McGrath, above.
Each of its contemporary revivals have hinted at the uncertainties of the present day, with 2015’s production featuring a David Cameron figure and 2016’s a brash, Trump-like buffoon. Douglas says that the 2019 run, which echoes radical theatre company 7:84’s original tour in the 1970s by visiting smaller venues, will likely respond to the climate emergency called by the likes of Extinction Rebellion and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
“The debate is shifting so rapidly,” says Douglas. “Older arguments about whose oil it is, I’m not sure how much currency that has going forward. The bigger questions will have to be about renewable energy – another potential boom. That’s what I think the play can do now, ask what opportunities were lost at the end of the 1970s.”
Douglas says this tour will bring renewed focus to the message of McGrath’s script.
“I think of the play as the story of capitalism in Scotland over the past 200 or so years and how that has ridden roughshod over people’s lives,” says Douglas, now artistic director of Newcastle’s Live Theatre, where The Cheviot will have a two-week run following these opening dates.
He adds: “It tells some of the individual stories that were unthinkingly swept aside by some of these developments. It also satirises the ruling classes, the landed gentry, and this massive disparity of who owns what.”
Forty-five years on from 7:84’s first tour, people still want to see the powerful play.
“This is because it’s a play that makes statements in a way that’s quite bold,” says Douglas. “Because of this potency it provokes conversation and that’s why people should see it today.”
May 16, Ardler Centre, Dundee; May 19, Eden Court, Inverness; May 23, Mareel, Lerwick; May 23, Mareel, Lerwick; May 25, Stenness Community Centre, Orkney; May 28, Macphail Centre, Ullapool; May 29, Dornie Village Hall: May 31, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye; June 1, Aros Centre, Portree, Skye; June 4, Aberdeen Arts Centre; June 5, Perth Theatre; June 6, Macrobert, Stirling; June 7, Charleston Centre, Dundee. Tickets at nationaltheatrescotland.com #Cheviot
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