Michael Cox speaks with Matthew Zajac about Dogstar's latest production.
This interview was conducted the day after Jacobite Country opened on the Fringe. Unfortunately, due to technical problems, I am only able to post it now, after its tour has concluded.
Michael Cox: This is a busy time for everyone, especially you.
Matthew Zajac: Yeah, it’s been mad.
MC: You’ve got a lot going on now, don’t you?
MZ: Well, we have Jacobite Country up and running now, so I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
MC: That’s always good to see, especially after a lot of stress.
MZ: Yes, absolutely. And it hasn’t been the simplest of rehearsal periods with Jacobite Country. It’s often the way with new plays; there’s an awful lot of fine tuning and topping, and that’s happened a bit more than normal with this.
MC: Trying to get it right. There’s nothing wrong with that.
MZ: Absolutely, that’s exactly it.
MC: Talk to me a bit Jacobite. Was it originally your idea, or did someone approach you with it?
MZ: I’ve been an admirer of Henry Adam’s work, so I asked him if he had anything else for Dogstar to work with. He had this idea for a television series called Jacobite Country, which was originally a bigger canvas than what we have now but never got made. He had all this material, story ideas and characters. He showed me it, and I said that we should do something with it. So, what we ended up with is obviously different than what would have happened with a six-part drama series, but he’d wrestled with lots of ways to tackle the material and he finally came up with what we’ve got, and I think it’s fairly dynamic and has such a great cast and design, so I’m really pleased with it.
MC: Can you tell me what the production actually is.
MZ: The first half is set in Craig Dunain Mental Hospital, which no longer exists but was a looming presence in the Highlands. It held 1,000 patients which, in its time, would have equaled one in every 200 of the entire population of the Highlands, and it was a feared place. Henry has used it as a symbol for the Scottish psyche for essential themes and ideas for the play.
The main character is a young man who’s staying there with his catatonic uncle, and he has aspirations in becoming a stand-up comedian. He goes to London to become a comic, but there are aspects in the play that suggest it could all be a dream…or not. The show plays a bit with reality. It’s a play about a marginalized, alienated, disenfranchised people who, for one reason or another, haven’t gone along with a conformist way of living
MC: It sounds like a rather large canvas you’ve had to paint.
MZ: It is. It’s not one you see onstage much because it’s about… You can say that Scotland is on the edge of Europe, and this is a play about people on the edge of the edge.
And I’ve been lucky in working with four actresses who are all from the Highlands. They bring their own indigenous linguistic gifts, if you like, to a play that is already very rich in language. It’s a very rich slice of the Highlands and an aspect of the Highlands that you don’t see very much, and it’s a challenge to the way of life in the Highlands, where the beauty of the land is acknowledged but aspects of the history are damaged.
MC: Any discoveries in the rehearsal process?
MZ: I’m not a particularly experienced director; I’m really an actor who accidently fallen into directing time and again. It’s been the most challenging rehearsal process for me, mostly because of the development of the script, but it’s been the most satisfying experience as a director because we’ve managed to achieve something which I think is quite an exciting work.
One of the trademarks of our company has been to capitalize on live music into our productions. The almost kind of medical power of music in theatre, not only on terms in the way it can create atmosphere and change moods but also in the way it can provide the cement to productions or some kind of dramatic counterpoint or commentary.
It’s funny, because I’ve read lots of plays in my life. I was a student of drama at university, and sometimes I’d read a play and found it quite hard to visualise, wondering how you’d produce this. It seemed so far away from the stage. The simple fact of getting talented actors and other artists, in what is essentially a team game, and seeing how the respond to a text is the great revelation for me any time I do it.
I think trying to pull the actors away from realism has been an important aspect because it is a metaphorical play, and that has been helpful for them, to think of it as a dream or something that is just a bit out of kilter with reality.
MC: What do you look most forward to now that it’s in production?
MZ: What I look forward to most is, with Jacobite Country, is the response of young people. I think it is a play that will appeal to young people more than any other age group. There’s a challenge to use actually getting young people in because, generally speaking, with our shows, and I think it’s true with theatre as a whole: audiences tend to be over the age of 35, and over 50% are over 45, normally. I’m also really looking forward to the actors relaxing into performing it.
With any new production, in Scotland shows tend to be reviewed (and have to be reviewed) because they have such short runs. Often, a play, especially a new play, will be almost unrecognizable by the end of its run. That’s interesting and what has to happen; you make all sorts of discoveries along the way. But that’s something I’m looking forward to with Jacobite Country. It’s such a rich and dense play and is at times difficult to grasp, so there’s still quite a lot to be discovered, and I know that the more the actors become familiar with the material and relax into it the more they’ll play with each other and play with the audience, and the more they’ll discover.
And the other thing I’m really looking forward to is a hot bath.
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