An eventful trip

I've just returned from visiting the Horse + Bamboo touring company - Mark, Jonny, Mel and Jordanna - on Deeside; partly to see the company and partly to film the show.

Banchory - Woodend Barn

First stop was at a really beautiful and well run art centre, Woodend Barn, at Banchory – close to Aberdeen. Here we had a great turn out, the 120 seater almost full and a very, very enthusiastic reception.

Some of the comments:

“Wow! Lost for words...moved to tears. Thank you”

“Exquisite theatre + art + music. Thank you for a stunning piece of art and a real tribute to the human spirit.”

“One of the most interesting theatrical performances I have ever seen”.

Braemar Village Hall

Then, after a drive to Inverness to the opening of the Scottish Mental Health Art and Film Festival at Eden Court I drove back through the Cairngorms to Braemar and the tiny but characterful village hall. Here we were welcomed by a small and mysterious group of very talented musicians greeting the audience as they arrived by playing in the foyer. Again, there was a great reception for the show:

“You took me on a journey into the life of Angus. An amazing story, brilliantly told, evocative, emotional, educational – a tear was shed, a wonderful performance – thank you – a visual picnic and feast.”

“Magical. Brilliantly conceived and performed. Very moving – thanks.”

The road to Glenshee

Then through Glenshee to Perth and the Weaver of Grass exhibition in the Museum and Art Gallery. One of the things this year is how much is happening related to Angus MacPhee. In Inverness there are guided walks of the places he worked (on Wednesday 9^th October at 1pm and 6pm, with Karrie Marshall at the site of Craig Dunain, the mental hospital where Angus lived for 50 years); a reading of poetry by Chrys Salt and a talk by Roger Hutchinson, author of 'The Silent Weaver'. Saturday 12^th October is 'Angus McPhee day' – a celebration of creativity, and alongside these activities our friend Joanne B Kaar will be running a grass weaving workshop, and our show will be playing at Eden Court Theatre at 7pm.

From the exhibition in Perth Art Gallery and Museum

The Perth exhibition is very impressive, and it also features the film of Joanne demonstrating how Angus made his weavings. The gallery includes great examples of Angus' work collected by Joyce Laing, including several that I hadn't seen before. It's overwhelming and very pleasing to see so much interest now in Angus and his work. Posters and flyers of the exhibitions, our show, and these various Angus-related events and activities are to be found all over the country. How much has changed in just one year. 

MJ and WA

Thanks to all of the organisers, including Anna NicGuaire, of our memorable trip to Islay for forwarding some of the comments and reviews they have collected from our visit, including the great photograph above of Mel (MJ) Deans with the puppet rapidly gaining a reputation as Wee Angus. 

Some of the comments:

“It was a really spellbinding amalgam of mask theatre, puppetry, physical theatre, storytelling, music and multi-media...a memorable piece of work”

“Funny, desperate, moving; oh, my heart. Wonderful”

“Bha sin àlainn a-raoir...wonderful, sensitive, visual treat...go see”

“Great theatre company...great production”

“The puppet 'Wee Angus'...quite stole the show, reflecting the skill of the puppet designers and makers...The large audience in Bowmore Hall, many visibly moved at the emotional end, thoroughly applauded the performance.”

“...the play was wonderful, and the reaction since has been great.”

Two Joyces

The Angus tour continues on the mainland, and tonight it's the first of our BLAS Festival shows - at Fortrose Community Centre. The Festival celebrates Gaelic language and culture in 9 days of a packed programme of events including music, dance, film, food, literature - and Angus - Weaver of Grass. For more information visit the BLAS site by clicking here, and our own itinerary can be found in the column on the right of this blog.

The last couple of days we've been in Perth, taking our place in the series of events celebrating Angus MacPhee and Art Brut (also known as Outside Art or Art Extraordinary). Our shows, at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, have been very well received, with some glowing comments posted on Facebook. The events were opened by Joyce Laing with a talk about Angus MacPhee and his place among outsider artists. Joyce, of course, was the woman who discovered Angus working on his grass-weavings at Craig Dunain hospital.

Those of you who have seen our show will know that in the current version we've bought the character of Joyce Laing into the action. Joyce isn't mentioned by name but anyone who knows anything of Angus' story would recognise her part in our telling of it. So in Perth the two Joyces finally met (proof above). Joyce Laing and Mel Deans who plays the masked representation of her 1970s self!

A short trip to the Islands

The first glimpse of Muck

Our Horse + Bamboo tour arrived on the Isle of Muck last Wednesday, and I was fortunate enough to accompany them. The island, with a population somewhere between 30 and 40, is tiny - just a mile wide; two miles long. It is notable for being self-sufficient in power, with large solar panels and several wind-generators that provide all their needs - and which did a thoroughly decent job of providing us power for Angus - Weaver of Grass. 

Mark drives our van, while Jonny, Jordanna and Mel walk to the Community Hall.

28 people turned out for the show - almost 80% of the population! Despite having no blackout the show worked well. It started in close to broad daylight (the hall has large roof lights) but night drew in just as the story gets darker - so the contrast from the light of Angus' early years to his later travails and the long period of incarceration in Craig Dunain was echoed by the changing and dimming light in the hall. 

The show was very well received - everyone staying around for tea and cakes, and to chat with myself and the cast. What a hospitable community! We were fed and watered, and then provided with lovely rooms for the overnight stay, before being waved off from the quayside the next morning. An amazing visit!

Arriving on Islay, Port Askaig.

Then on to Islay, after returning to Mallaig and a drive south. 'Angus' was on at the Bowmore Hall, where 80 people turned up - the arts committee were overjoyed by the size of the audience, and a good few of them were Gaelic speakers. The response at the end was electric - and just about everyone stayed behind to chat, look at the masks and puppets, buy copies of The Silent Weaver book by Roger Hutchinson (which we sell after the show along with Nick Higgin's film Hidden Gifts about Angus). Comments in the book were full of delight and astonishment at our production. So all in all a wonderful trip, and a reminder of the powerful impact that theatre can have on audiences. 

Off to Muck

A few days to recover, mend the caisean-uchd, the van, and the horse masks, and tomorrow we're off to Mallaig ready for the ferry to Muck on Thursday morning, followed by a quick sprint down to another ferry, this time to Islay.

I've found time between jobs to read the Comments Book from Edinburgh, and it's full of glowing comments including:

"A story of beauty, sanity and one man's truth. Courageous, weaving through life itself. Stunning production in its vast sway of talents."

[From Liz Lochhead]:

"The most beautiful, moving, magical & amazing show about Art & extraordinary, ordinary life."

"Second time and it's even more profound"

"Beautiful singing"

....and so on!

Soon we'll be back in Glasgow - at Partick Gaelic School on Wednesday 4th September, and then on Thursday 5th there's a special event at Perth Museum & Art Gallery relating to their exhibition 'Weaver of Grass' about Angus MacPhee, which obviously relates to our show there on the 6th and 7th September, and finally to say that our  old friend Joanne B Kaar is running a special grass weaving workshop at Perth a month later - on the 7th October.

Worth saying that tickets for the Glasgow Partick Gaelic School performance can be bought directly from our website shop - click here.

A key turns in the door

The show that really excited me most in Edinburgh was the Peter Doig exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery. I don't much distinguish between theatre, performance or visual art exhibitions. Doig's work I had seen before in reproduction and the odd single painting, but not en masse as in this exhibition.

Peter Doig: Jetty

Walking through the exhibition I had to consider my expectations of what painting was about; what constitutes pure painting; what place does narrative and commentary (of a kind) play in the visual arts. Thinking about the experience of Doig's show, and reading the catalogue afterwards I felt a key turn in the door.

Angus, from Angus - Weaver of Grass

When creating Angus – Weaver of Grass I struggled with the facts of Angus MacPhee's life, and it's setting (at the beginning) in the (to me) exotic place of South Uist. How to represent the place; how to represent the culture of the place; how to do this without lapsing into stereotypes. Then how to do the same for Angus's wartime experience and his decline into a madness, and then the half-century spent in Craig Dunain hospital. Doig's paintings do the same – whether it's painting the Canada he grew up in, or Trinidad where he now lives. The exhibition is titled after Robert Louis Stevenson's words: 

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign”.

Doig's paintings constantly show him wrestling with memory and place through the medium of paint. As a result they frequently have an awkward quality, and it takes effort and time to enjoy this. I feel the same way about aspects of Angus – Weaver of Grass, such as the move into a self-conscious archaism with the Knight and the Dragon, and the mish-mash of movement, film and imagery in the war-time descent to illness scene.

Peter Doig: Young Bean Farmer

A few people have commented on their frustration on the continually changing way that we tell the story of Angus, and I compare this with the way that Doig continually struggles to keep his canvases alive and rich with meaning. I consider a 'good' performance of the play is when the audience are alert to the happenings and stories and ideas on stage but don't think too much about the way we achieve them – rather they feel them, enjoy and sense them, in the way I eventually felt myself drawn into Dog's paintings.  

A short visit to Edinburgh

Edinburgh from the Grassmarket

Back from a brief visit to Edinburgh to see Angus - Weaver of Grass at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, at Netherbow on the Royal Mile. The city on the first day was incredibly hot and sultry, and on the next it had an odd and persistent mist hanging in the air, somehow making the castle even more the looming presence over the city.  

After the wonderful opening last Friday at the Boo (see previous post) I approached the Edinburgh show with some nervousness. The Storytelling Centre is in most ways the perfect venue - central, well-appointed, and with a genuinely welcoming feel to the whole place. But we know from last year (when we also performed Angus at this venue) that the stage is very, very cramped for our particular show. The performers have less than a metre backstage to change in, squeeze by one another on the way to coming on-stage, plus store the many props, masks, puppets and costumes. The depth of the stage also means that our projectors have to be placed 60 or 70 centimetres nearer to the set than we need, so they are both more oblique to the stage screens, and the image projected is smaller, so it doesn't properly cover the stage. The third issue is that we can't use our own lights and sound because of the same lack of space and, alongside necessarily restricted time to set up, the focusing of the house lights and balancing of sound can create serious problems for such a visual show. 

For me, the director, the first show I saw was spoiled by just these problems. The cast did really well, but the technical issues meant the piece only partially worked - it 'fired on three cylinders' I told the performers afterwards. It's worth saying that the audience appeared to appreciate it as much as ever, and this was born out by the writings left in the Comments Book left in the lobby of the ST Centre.

Our set in the Netherbow Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre

After the show there was time to give notes and feedback to the performers, and we planned that I arrive during the next day's setting up period and that we tried to find time (difficult with just a short changeover) to look again at the sound settings. This we did - finding just 25 minutes to alter various settings. 

The show that followed was wonderful. I'm so impressed by Jonny, Jordanna, Mark and Mel - taking all this in their stride with good humour, and then delivering an immaculate 75 minute performance! 

One comment left for us:

"I never cried watching a show before, and I never felt life so close to me"