Scottish Theatre Diversity Language Continuity

Challenging the dominant view of a broken and discontinuous dramatic culture in Scotland, this book outlines the variety and richness of the nation ́s performance traditions and multilingual theatre history. Brown illuminates enduring strands of hybridity and diversity which use theatre and theatricality as a means of challenging establishment views, and of exploring social, political, and religious change. He describes the ways in which politically and religiously divisive moments in Scottish history, such as the Reformation and political Union, fostered alternative dramatic modes and means of expression. This major revisionist history also analyses the changing relationships between drama, culture, and political change in Scotland in the 20th and 21st centuries, drawing on the work of an extensive range of modern and contemporary Scottish playwrights and drama practitioners. Ian Brown is a playwright, poet and Professor of Drama at Kingston University, London. Until recently Chair of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, he was General Editor of the Edinburgh History of Scottish Theatre (EUP, 2007) and editor of From Tartan to Tartanry: Scottish Culture, History and Myth (EUP, 2010) and The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama (EUP, 2011). He has published widely on theatre, cultural policy and literature and language.

From the late 1960s until the present day, a significant number of women playwrights have emerged in Scottish theatre who have made a pioneering contribution to dramatic innovation and experimentation. Despite the critical reassessment of some of these authors in the last twenty years, their invaluable achievement in playwriting, within and outside Scotland, still deserves more thorough investigations and fuller acknowledgement. This work explores what is still uncharted territory by examining a selection of representative texts by Ann Marie di Mambro, Marcella Evaristi, Sue Glover, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, Sharman Macdonald, and Joan Ure. The three macro-thematic areas of the book – the rewriting of the Shakespearean canon; the representation of female communities and minorities; and the conflicts between the self and society – find significant and paradigmatic expression in their dramas. All seven writers examined in this book have explored new theatrical methods, introduced aesthetic innovations and opened new perspectives to engage with the complexities of national, community and individual identities. This study will surely contribute to wider recognition of their achievement, so that their work can never again be described as “uncharted territory”.

This book argues that Scottish theatre has, since the late 1960s, undergone an artistic renaissance, driven by European Modernist aesthetics. Combining detailed research and analysis with exclusive interviews with ten leading figures in modern Scottish drama, the book sets out the case for the last half-century as the strongest period in the history of the Scottish stage. Mark Brown traces the development of Scottish theatre’s Modernist revolution from the arrival of influential theatre director Giles Havergal at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1969 through to the advent of the National Theatre of Scotland in 2006. Finally, the book contemplates the future of Scotland’s theatrical renaissance. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary theatre and/or the modern history of live drama in Scotland.

This wide-ranging and ground-breaking book, especially relevant given Brexit and renewed Scottish independence campaigning, provides in-depth analysis of ways Scottishness has been performed and modified over the centuries. Alongside theatre, television, comedy, and film, it explores performativity in public events, Anglo-Scottish relations, language and literary practice, the Scottish diaspora and concepts of nation, borders and hybridity. Following discussion of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath and the real meanings of the 1706/7 Treaty of Union, it examines the differing perceptions of what the ‘United Kingdom’ means to Scots and English. It contrasts the treatment of Shakespeare and Burns as ‘national bards’ and considers the implications of Scottish scholars’ invention of ‘English Literature’. It engages with Scotland’s language politics –rebutting claims of a ‘Gaelic Gestapo’ – and how borders within Scotland interact. It replaces myths about ‘tartan monsters’ with level-headed evidence before discussing in detail representations of Scottishness in domestic and international media.

This revelatory study explores how Scottish history plays, especially since the 1930s, raise issues of ideology, national identity, historiography, mythology, gender and especially Scottish language. Covering topics up to the end of World War Two, the book addresses the work of many key figures from the last century of Scottish theatre, including Robert McLellan and his contemporaries, and also Hector MacMillan, Stewart Conn, John McGrath, Donald Campbell, Bill Bryden, Sue Glover, Liz Lochhead, Jo Clifford, Peter Arnott, David Greig, Rona Munro and others often neglected or misunderstood. Setting these writers’ achievements in the context of their Scottish and European predecessors, Ian Brown offers fresh insights into key aspects of Scottish theatre. As such, this represents the first study to offer an overarching view of historical representation on Scottish stages, exploring the nature of ‘history’ and ‘myth’ and relating these afresh to how dramatists use – and subvert – them. Engaging and accessible, this innovative book will attract scholars and students interested in history, ideology, mythology, theatre politics and explorations of national and gender identity.

Written during the 1970s, John McGrath's winding, furious, innovative play tracks the economic history and exploitation of the Scottish Highlands from the post-Rebellion suppression of the clans to the story of the Clearances: in the nineteenth century, aristocratic landowners discovered the profitability of sheep farming, and forced a mass emigration of rural Highlanders, burning their houses in order to make way for the Cheviot sheep. The play follows the thread of capitalist and repressive exploitation through the estates of the stag-hunting landed gentry, to the 1970s rush for profit in the name of North Sea Oil. Described by the playwright as having a “ceilidh” format, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil draws on historical research alongside Gaelic song and the Scots' love of variety and popular entertainment to tell this epic story. A totally distinctive cultural and theatrical phenomenon, the play championed several new approaches to theatre, raising its profile as a means of political intervention; proposing a collective, democratic, collaborative approach to creating theatre; offering a language of performance accessible to working-class people; producing theatre in non-purpose-built theatre spaces; breaking down the barrier between audience and performers through interaction; and taking theatre to people who otherwise would not access it. The play received its premiere in 1973 by the agit-prop theatre group 7:84, of which John McGrath was founder and Artistic Director, and toured Scotland to great critical and audience acclaim.

A Companion to Scottish Literature offers fresh readings of major authors and periods of Scottish literary production from the first millennium to the present. Bringing together contributions by many of the world’s leading experts in the field, this comprehensive resource provides the historical background of Scottish literature, highlights new critical approaches, and explores wider cultural and institutional contexts. Dealing with texts in the languages of Scots, English, and Gaelic, the Companion offers modern perspectives on the historical milieux, thematic contexts and canonical writers of Scottish literature. Original essays apply the most up-to-date critical and scholarly analyses to a uniquely wide range of topics, such as Gaelic literature, national and diasporic writing, children’s literature, Scottish drama and theatre, gender and sexuality, and women’s writing. Critical readings examine William Dunbar, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, amongst others. With full references and guidance for further reading, as well as numerous links to online resources, A Companion to Scottish Literature is essential reading for advanced students and scholars of Scottish literature, as well as academic and non-academic readers with an interest in the subject.

This book considers the state of contemporary theatre education in Great Britain is in two parts. The first half considers the national identities of each of the three mainland nations of England, Scotland, and Wales to understand how these differing identities are reflected and refracted through culture, theatre education and creative learning. The second half attends to 21st century theatre education, proposing a more explicit correlation between contemporary theatre and theatre education. It considers how theatre education in the country has arrived at its current state and why it is often marginalised in national discourse. Attention is given to some of the most significant developments in contemporary theatre education across the three nations, reflecting on how such practice is informed by and offers a challenge to conceptions of place and nation. Drawing upon the latest research and strategic thinking in culture and the arts, and providing over thirty interviews and practitioner case studies, this book is infused with a rigorous and detailed analysis of theatre education, and illuminated by the voices and perspectives of innovative theatre practitioners.