Joy Watters reviews Dundee Rep's 'brave attempt' at an epic production.
Playwright David Greig`s dream was for Victoria to be three full-length plays staged over consecutive nights but “squashed it” (his words) into three acts of one long play. He suspects it suffers from this; he is right.
Commissioned by the RSC in 2000, Greig wanted to write an epic and created a vast narrative examining matters political, social, cultural and family relationships throughout a large swathe of the 20th century. The work focuses on three generations of a Highland family, the community which surrounds them and the changing world. It emerges as an arduous ascent to the music of time with some thought-provoking views along the way.
The highlights are brief and there is the sense of the audience reaching out for some connective tissue to involve them in the piece which runs for well over three hours, including two intervals. It is Victoria's Scottish premiere, Rep co-artistic director Philip Howard's first production for the theatre and the opening work of the autumn season but unfortunately not an auspicious occasion for all that.
Cohesion is provided by having one actress, the excellent Elspeth Brodie, play a Victoria at three moments in time: 1936, 1974 and 1996. The effects of time on rich and poor are shown as Victoria is first a servant and finally in the money by way of being an American geologist investigating the riches that lie in the granite in the heart of the earth.
The class structure is shown through the landed gentry, portrayed initially as a kind of tourist attraction, but the rise of fascism is embodied in the head of the family, David (an uncomfortable performance by Ali Craig), who espouses the cause with chilling enthusiasm. His theories on human impregnation are expounded in an almost risible fashion, with appropriately enough a small cannon at his side. Meanwhile the workers on the estate are talking of the Spanish civil war and are shown in the conflict in an entr'acte set in 1937.
One of the problems of the piece is that while the characters are shown in various guises over the years, they are played by different actors in different acts, and for the audience to simply work out who is who is no mean feat. While it is always a treat to see a large cast, in this case embracing experience and the enthusiasm of new young actors, the piece restricts development of character in a meaningful way.
It was a brave attempt by all, but there was no great sense
of achievement once the huge mountain of writing had been scaled.
Runs at Dundee Rep until September 21
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