The Burning - EdinburghGuide.com
The Burning
EdinburghGuide.com
The Burning
Venue Duddingston Kirk Manse Garden
Reviewer Lorraine McCann.
Once again, Theatre Alba takes drama right back to its roots, transforming the beautiful surroundings of Duddingston Kirk Manse Garden into a verdant amphitheatre - and what better setting for Stewart Conn's provocative exploration of witchcraft and materialism? Sixteenth-century Scotland, a nation riven with religious differences, is ruled by the Protestant King James VI.
A weak, paranoid monarch, he sees dark Satanic forces at work in the most mundane of occurrences. Conversely, the more popular James Bothwell, 'The Black Earl', is a self-assured materialist, scornful of James's authority and adept at manipulating his suggestible mind. It is a conflict of outlook that resonates to disastrous effect in the lives of more lowly people, as well.
Indeed, the most powerful scenes in the play are the hideously unjust 'trials' of two women accused of witchcraft, their every utterance twisted into evidence of guilt.
Kirstin Smith, Suzanne Dance and Sean Kane are particularly good here. The play, however, clearly gravitates towards Bothwell and the King. And although James Sutherland brings an authentic swagger to the 'Black Earl' that perfectly offsets Keith Hutcheon's effete rendition of James VI, neither of them inspires much sympathy. Still, as a spectacle - moths, midges, bats and all - it doesn't get much better than this.
© Lorraine McCann, 9 August 2003 - Published on www.EdinburghGuide.com
