Two brothers Archie and Murdo, live in the far north on opposite sides of a field. One brother is shrivelling away. The other is eating himself to death on a diet of macaroons dipped in jam. These misfit siblings haven’t spoken for years – but they do share a cat. Kate, a writer who has come to lecture in a nearby village, is snowed up with Archie after he puts her up for the night. In the days that follow Kate is drawn in to the tissue of lies and self deception that keep the brothers alive in a bond of mutual loathing, leading them to their fate with profound, funny and touching results. Read more …
Sweetness adapted by Kevin MacNeil from Torgny Lindgren's novel Hummelhonung, translated by Tom Geddes, opens at An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis on Thursday 24 February and will then tour throughout Scotland until 26 March.
Matthew Zajac is directing the production and also playing the part of Archie. Other members of the cast are Lynne Verrall (Kate) and Sean Hay (Murdo). Music and sound are by the renowned musician Johnny Hardie. Set design is by Peggy Jones.
Kevin MacNeil is an acclaimed poet and novelist from the Isle of Lewis. His recently published novel, A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde (Polygon) is receiving rave reviews. Currently he is working on a travelogue-memoir entitled Two Wheels By The Danube, centring round his cycle down the Danube in 2009 which has been filmed for a documentary for the BBC. Kevin has received a number of national and international literary honours and awards including the Tivoli European International Poetry Prize (2000) and has held Writing Residencies in the Highlands, Uppsala University, Edinburgh University and Bavaria. Publications include The Stornoway Way (Penguin), Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides and Be Wise, Be Otherwise (both Canongate). His play The Callanish Stoned was produced by Theatre Hebrides in 2006. www.kevinmacneil.com
Lindgren’s story is transposed from Northern Sweden to Northern Scotland. In doing so, the idiom may change, but the essential world of Lindgren’s story will remain the same. In Sweetness, he provides us with a gift: a beautifully realised, metaphorically powerful comedy of three fascinating characters.
Kevin MacNeil said: “I can’t remember when I last read a book that so desperately and winningly cried out to be adapted for the stage. Torgny Lindgren’s rich and droll and dark and life-enhancing Sweetness/ Hummelhonung is one of the most wittily meaningful novels Northern Europe has produced in recent times.”
This play is early in its life and the shape will get tighter as the tour develops. But I’d call it a strong and brave piece of work already. And I suggest, unlike the novels, it has a strong and convincing ending.
An over-refined, low-calorie version of Sweetness, when the original Hummelhonung implies, literally, the full-bodied nectar of bumblebee honey.
Sweetness is a piece of skewed post-modern storytelling that revels in its own oddness.
The story is intriguing and wryly amusing, but the theatrical rhythm soon becomes dull and repetitive.
The Dogstar production suffers from clumsy transitions, but the vivid and strange characterisations see it through.
Matthew Zajac stars in and directs tragicomedy Sweetness
Multiple venues. Check the website for event and venue details., from Thursday February 24, 2011, until Saturday March 26, 2011.
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