Lorna Irvine reviews the 'stunning' production.
This is the Glasgow the Yes campaign won't be so keen to address - the one reflected in steel blades, dissected with forensic precision.
Personifying the city is art gallery owner Ciara (Blythe Duff), daughter of gangster Mick, wife of ex-art student Brian. Glam yet gimlet-eyed in her green halter-neck dress, she addresses the audience like a savvy friend in a pub. Now her father is dead, can she come out from under his shadow and succeed on her own terms- or will the past always prevail?
A co-production between Traverse Theatre and Datum Point, Blythe Duff's staccato monologue, created especially for her by acclaimed writer David Harrower, has a savage poetry, offset by shrewd humour: there's not a wasted line in it. As Ciara sashays across the stage (a simple dusty warehouse set) speaking of the horrors her late daddy failed to protect her from, her attack is deadly. Her father was ‘a legend' say the leering drunks; yet she observes that ‘even death couldn't relax him'.
Traverse's artistic director Orla O'Loughlin's direction is nothing short of immaculate, pacing Duff's movement with elegance. Ciara is a morality tale with clarity- seeking to discover the source of societal problems, the better to unpick them and thus end the cycle of abuse.
An outstanding addition to the Citizens Theatre's programme- the high life and low lives have rarely been so perfectly scrutinised. Ciara is dark, tough and uncompromising, and Duff gives a career-best performance. Stunning.
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