‘From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs’: The New National Theatre of Scotland
2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10486800701234432
ISSN1477-2264
Autores Tópico(s)Scottish History and National Identity
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Robert Burns, The Cotters Saturday Night (1785). 2. Joyce McMillan, Scotsman (27 January 2005). 3. Ibid. 4. Christine Hamilton and Adrienne Scullion, ‘Flagships or Flagging?: The Post Devolution Role of Scotland's National Companies’, Scottish Affairs, 42 (Winter 2003), 98–114 (p. 4). 5. Tom Nairn, After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland (London: Granta, 2000), p. 155. 6. Some commentators found the impetus towards the creation of a national theatre company disturbing. It could be read, they argued, as indicative of a desire among those responsible for the development of cultural policy ‘to find a Scottish “national culture” when, in the context of new nationalisms, new federalisms, globalization, let alone in the context of devolution, this [was] an “illegitimate” project’. Adrienne Scullion, ‘Paper for the Scottish Arts and Cultural Policy Forum University of Stirling February 2004’, Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow. Available at: http://www.culturalpolicy.arts.gla.ac.uk [accessed May 2006]. The view reiterated by Professor Scullion here, however, was by no means representative. It is, for example, by no means clear that the discourse surrounding contemporary Scottish nationalism is necessarily ‘illegitimate’, parochial or especially inward-looking. On the contrary, much recent writing on the subject has sought to demonstrate the opposite. While taking no single line on issues of nationalism and national identity the following titles demonstrate the complexity of the debates surrounding these issues in Scotland: Christopher Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707 to the Present (London: Routledge, 2004); William Ferguson, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: An Historic Quest (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Jonathan Hearn, Claiming Scotland: National Identity and Liberal Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2000); David McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Nation (London: Routledge, 2001); Susan Manning, Fragments of a Nation: Making Connections in Scottish and American Writing (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001); Cairns Craig, Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and English Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1996); Murray Pitlock, Celtic Identity and the British Image (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). 7. As Loren Kruger has observed, ‘the idea of “staging the nation”, of representing as well as reflecting the people in the theatre, of constituting or even standing in for an absent or imperfect national identity, emerges in the European Enlightenment’. Loren Kruger, The National Stage: Theatre and Cultural Legitimation in England, France, and America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 3. See also, Laurence Senelick (ed.), National Theatre in Northern and Eastern Europe, 1746–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 8. Roger Savage, ‘A Scottish National Theatre?’, in Randall Stevenson and Gavin Wallace (eds), Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 23–24. 9. The members of the working group were Donald Smith, Chair, director of Netherbow Arts Centre; Denis Agnew, Theatre Practitioner; Maggi Allan, Director of Education, South Lanarkshire Council; James Brining, artistic director, Tag Theatre Company; Hamish Glen, artistic director Dundee Rep., Chair FST; Iain Macauley, arts development officer, Scottish Borders Council; Joyce McMillan, theatre critic, journalist and broadcaster; Vladimir Mirodan, Director of Drama, RSAMD; Janet Paisley, playwright; Shona Powell, director, The Lemon Tree; Jean Urquart, director, The Ceilidh Place. 10. Federation of Scottish Theatre, Proposal for a National Theatre for Scotland (Edinburgh: FST, 2000). 11. Scottish National Theatre: Final Report of the Independent Working Group (Glasgow: Scottish Arts Council, 2001), p. 6, available at: http://www.sac.org.uk/nonhtdocs/single-page-pdf [accessed April 2006]. 12. Denis Agnew, Contexts and Concepts of a Scottish National Theatre (unpublished doctoral thesis, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, 2000), p. 13. In his book about the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh, the same theatre visited by George IV in 1822, Donald Mackenzie argues that this earlier theatre deserves to be considered a kind of putative national theatre of Scotland. In the nineteenth century, he argues, the Edinburgh theatre ‘made attendance at the play the civilized practice’ and the Theatre Royal ‘became, at its zenith, a focal point for the national feelings of the people of Scotland’. Donald Mackenzie, Scotland's First National Theatre (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 23. 13. See Denis Agnew, ‘The Scottish National Theatre Dream’, International Journal of Scottish Theatre, 1:3 (September 2001), available at: http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/i/msg03166.html and Roger Savage, ‘A Scottish National Theatre?’, in Randall Stevenson and Gavin Wallace (eds), Scottish Theatre since the Seventies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 23–33. See also, Winifred Isaac, Wareing, A Biography (London, 1946). For a fuller account of the Glasgow Repertory theatre and the SNTS see, David Hutchison, The Modern Scottish Theatre (Glasgow: Molendinar Press, 1977), chapters 3 and 5. 14. Scotsman (31 May 1949). 15. Quoted by Juliette Garside, ‘Is it Curtains for a National Theatre?’, Sunday Herald (1 December 2002). 16. According to Agnew Edinburgh District Council did actually offer two sites but the idea came to nothing ‘partly because there was not enough public support for a Scottish national theatre’. Contexts and Concepts of a Scottish National Theatre, p. 185. 17. According to Agnew the SAC was keen to prevent the majority of its core grant from the ACGB being siphoned into the creation of a more conventional national theatre on the English model. See, Contexts and Concepts of a Scottish National Theatre, p. 194. For a fuller account of the Lyceum's relationship to the campaign for a national theatre during this period see chapters 8–10 of Donald Campbell, A Brighter Sunshine: A Hundred Years of the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum Theatre (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1983). 18. Scottish Arts Council, Theatre in Scotland 1970 (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 26. 19. Donald Smith, ‘1950 to 1995’, in B. Findlay (ed.), A History of Scottish Theatre (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1998), pp. 253–308 (p. 288). 20. Clive Perry, quoted in Glasgow Herald (10 October 1970). 21. Arnold Kemp, Observer (3 February 2002). 22. Denis Agnew, quoted by Kemp, The Observer (3 February 2002). The Scottish Theatre Company continued to work until 1987 but latterly the Citizens' Company was chosen instead of the STC to visit the Edinburgh International Festival. This decision had a damaging effect on the STC in so far as it deprived the company of revenue and the possibility of overseas appearances. 24. Paul H. Scott, A Selection of AdCAS Papers, 1981–1991, p. 37. Scott was himself a leading member of the AdCAS and is quoted in Agnew, p. 227. 23. The AdCAS was formed in 1981 and grew out of a Saltire Society conference held in St Andrews in 1977. See Agnew, p. 225. 25. Agnew, Contexts and Concepts of a Scottish National Theatre, p. 225. 26. Scottish Executive, Creating Our Future … Minding Our Past: Scotland's National Cultural Strategy (Edinburgh: Scottish Executive, 2000). Available at: www.scotland.gov.uk/nationalculturalstrategy/docs/cult-02.asp [accessed April 2006]. 27. Counting Our Future … Minding Our Past: Scotland's National Cultural Strategy, p. 3. 28. Joyce McMillan, Scotsman (27 January 2005). 29. Available at: http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/default.asp,page=s7_7 [accessed April 2006]. 30. Joyce McMillan, Scotsman (27 January 2005). 31. The partnership between Tiffany and Burke was to be triumphantly resurrected for the NTS 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe production Black Watch. Billed as an unauthorised biography of the famous Scottish regiment the show received five-star reviews in among others the Herald, the Scotsman, the Guardian, The Times and the Daily Telegraph. For extracts from these reviews see the NTS website. 32. Sarah Jones, ‘Summit to Write Home About’, Scotland on Sunday (27 February 2005). 33. The question of Scotland's status as a postcolonial culture is a controversial one. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, for example, when discussing Irish, Welsh and Scottish literatures argue: ‘their subsequent complicity in the British imperial enterprise makes it difficult for colonized peoples outside Britain to accept their identity as post-colonial’. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 33. Nevertheless, Scotland's paradoxical existence as both coloniser and colonised has led some critics to develop postcolonial readings of Scottish literature and culture. See for example, Craig Beveridge and Ronald Turnbull, The Eclipse of Scottish Culture (London: Polygon, 1989), Liam Connell, ‘Modes of Marginality: Scottish Literature and the Uses of Postcolonial Theory’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23:1–2 (2003), 41–53; Ray Ryan, Ireland and Scotland: Literature and Culture, State and Nation 1966–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) and Cairns Craig, Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and English Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1996). 34. Available at: http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/default.asp,page=s7_7 [accessed May 2006]. 35. The directors of the Home projects were Alison Peebles, Matthew Lenton, Graham Eatough, Kenny Miller, Gill Robertson, Anthony Neilson, John Tiffany, Scott Graham, Wils Wilson and Stewart Laing. 36. Stewart Laing quoted by Mark Fisher in ‘The Long Way Home’, available at: http://www,hi-arts.co.uk/feb06_feature_national_theatre_scotland_launch.html.pr [accessed May 2006]. 37. The Home project involved the NTS in active collaborations with a range of established theatre companies. For instance, both Home Caithness and Home Stornoway involved local companies, Grey Coast Theatre Company and Theatre Hebrides respectively, in the role of liaison while Eden Court Theatre played a more pivotal role as producer of Home Inverness. 38. Joyce McMillan, Scotsman (4 February 2006). 39. Matthew Lenton is artistic director of the Glasgow based company Vanishing Point. See http://www.vanishing-pont.org/ for information about the company. 40. Kenny Mathieson, Home Caithness, available at: http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/Default.aspx?LocID=hianewljq&RefLocID=hiacg5005001& [accessed May 2006]. 41. Matthew Lenton quoted by Mark Fisher in ‘The Long Way Home’, available at: http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/feb06_feature_national_theatre_scotland_launch.html.pr [accessed May 2006]. 42. Jen Harvie, Staging the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 49. Harvie is specifically discussing Brith Gof's 1988 production Gododdin, which was premiered in a disused car factory, in this section of her book. 43. Wilson + wilson's work includes House (1998), which was performed in two abandoned terraces in Huddersfield, and more recently Mulgrave (2005), a promenade performance event involving a four-mile journey through Mulgrave woods in North Yorkshire. See the company's website, http://www.wilsonandwilson.org for further details. 44. John Haswell, review of Home Shetland, available at: http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/homeshetland-rev.htm. 45. Wils Wilson quoted by Mark Fisher ‘The Long Way Home’, available at: http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/feb06_feature_ national_theatre_scotland_launch.html.pr [accessed May 2006]. 46. Andrew Burnet, ‘A Ferry Tale Start for Roving Company’, Observer (26 February 2006). 47. Available at: http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/homeshetland-rev.htm [accessed May 2006]. 48. Joyce McMillan, Scotsman (27 February 2006). 49. Mark Fisher, Guardian (27 February 2006). 50. Available at: http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/default.asp,page=s7_7 [accessed May 2006]. 51. See, for example Mark Fisher's four-star review in the Guardian (4 May 2006) and Thom Dibdin's in The Stage (5 May 2006). 52. Guy Holland's production of Miller's classic play toured community venues with a core cast of nine professional actors supplemented by community casts picked up on the way. 53. A co-production between the NTS, Improbable and the Tramway in Glasgow, The Wolves in the Walls visited the Lyric in Hammersmith in April 2006 and toured more extensively in the UK in the autumn of 2006. 54. Details of both these shows including press reviews are available on the NTS website, http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com 55. Mark Fisher, The Times (9 April 2006). 56. The Neilson play was the first piece to be commissioned by the NTS in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Festival. 57. Scotsman (4 February 2006). 58. Quoted by Garside, ‘Is it Curtains for a National Theatre?’. 59. Harvie, Staging the UK, p. 34. 60. Available at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/chamber/mop-03/mop-09-25.htm [accessed April 2006]. 61. ‘Paper for the Scottish Arts and Cultural Policy Forum University of Stirling February 2004’, Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow. Available at: http://www.culturalpolicyy.arts.gla.ac.uk [accessed May 2006]. 62. Harvie, Staging the UK, pp. 4–5.
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