Writer and director Davey Anderson speaks with Michael Cox about his latest play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint and NTS.
In explaining the plot for A Dead Man’s Dying, Davey Anderson says, “You’re never quite sure when you’re going to laugh and when you’re going to go ‘Oh my God, what the hell is happening!’”
The play, part of A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s Latin American collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland, was originally performed in Columbia in the 1970s. Calling Esteban Navajas Cortes’ play a hard-hitting satire and great black comedy, Anderson compliments its shift in styles, saying that it is “completely tender and really tragic and then the next moment becomes absurd and wild, farcical even.” As the plot centres on a revolution, Anderson feels excited about putting the production up during these turbulent times. “It feels more topical as the days go on with what’s going on in Egypt and Libya now. All these stories about popular uprisings, and we’re doing a play about a peasant rebellion.”
Anderson knew very little about Latin America before embarking on writing an adaptation. He stuck his head into a lot of research, learning as much as he could for background. “You don’t hear much about the class structure, the culture and the traditions; the stories from that country.”
However, it was upon finding numerous parallels between Columbia and Scottish history that struck Anderson. “A big part of the play is about this land owner who has shifted the peasant farmers off his land so he can make room for his cattle. As soon as I read that it was like ‘Hello, that’s like the Highland Clearances right there.’” Anderson found other parallels, including extreme class divide and huge inequalities. “Now, more than ever, we’re becoming more aware of just how unequal this society is.” With all of these parallels, he was tempted to shift the dramatic action to Scotland but thought better of it, deciding that as it’s a play about Columbia, it was better to keep the play located there.
Concerning the play itself, the thing that intrigued Anderson the most was how none of the characters came across as either completely evil or good. For one, the play goes out of its way to allow the audience to understand and sympathise with the villains, and the good guys are by no means saintly. “That’s what struck me when I originally read it,” says Anderson, “because I thought, ‘Wow, who am I rooting for in this play?’”
Anderson isn’t just the adaptor; he is also serving as the director. “My job as a writer has been to make the words live in the English language but in a Scottish accent.” However, as a director he has enjoyed making new discoveries, working with people to solve previous questions and to make new discoveries. “You feed off the creative energy of the rest of the creative team.”
One of the biggest questions Anderson has had to solve deals with a major difference between British and Latin American drama: the use of dramatic metaphor. “It’s a world of allegory and magical realism rather than pure psychological naturalism.”
In Latin American theatre, many things are left unspoken. In cultures where censorship is rife and people have difficulty voicing their discontent and thoughts, metaphor becomes a powerful tool of expression. “This is a play full of layers, many layers of subtext which come out. Finding the subtext has been a real challenge and has been the best thing about working on the play.”
A Dead Man’s Dying plays at Oran Mor from February 28-March 5 and the Traverse from March 9-12.
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