Theatre Alba

"Thenew"
The Herald 21/11/01
Thenew/Netherbow Theatre, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper

BEYOND the Celtic twilight are a sea of stories
you'll never find in libraries, and are generally told
these days only by bearded men with grand
delusions of faraway glaikitness sitting round
artificial campfires. All the more reason, then,
for Margaret McSeveney's play to come blinking
into the light with this first in a proposed trilogy
that reworks Arthurian legends in Scotland's own
image.

Here we find goddesses of the old religion casting
spells beyond their ken, as head honcho of the
pagans digs his heels in while all about him are
converting. Queen Anna has already bowed down,
but it is their exiled teenage daughter Tennoch
who is the chosen one. In care and captivity of
her uncle Arthur, Tennoch is a kind of Buffy The
Vampire Slayer figure, but with a more whimsical, airy-fairy, altogether less wisecracking bent.

Watched over by her future spirit, her getting of
wisdom comes via immaculate conception, as she
moves out, changes her image, and hitches up on
the long road in search of herself. Despite minimal
resources, Charles Nowosielski's production for
Theatre Alba invests in a sweep of
imagination that cries out for a big stage to
transcend a story that is as big as a Greek
tragedy or biblical epic, if only it could rip out the
po-faced romance that attempts to leaven things
for the unenlightened. Neither is it helped by a
score that sounds like it's soundtracking an ad
for Scotch Mist PLC.

With Kirstin Smith a pale and wan Tennoch, this is
still a rich and vivid tale of reinvention and
renewal that rumbles with true sensuality, and
which, tidied up, might make for something
magnificent.