www. one4review .com (Five Stars -* * * * *)

 

J.M.Barrie’s play Mary Rose is remarkable – part comedy, part mystery and part romance.

Theatre Alba’s production does the play full justice. Mary Rose first appears in the play as an 18 year old girl and subsequently as a young mother in her early 20’s. However, despite the sexual feelings for her husband James, she has never lost her childlike innocence.

 

Going back to the age of 11, a mysterious event happened when she was on a holiday with her parents to the Hebrides. It is so potent that her parents have not told her of the event and she has no recollection of what took place. As the story unfolds going backwards and forwards in time between 1909 and 1946, it becomes more chilling.

 

Barrie skilfully uses comedy to allow the tension to build up gradually, as in the picnic scene when Mary Rose and James are accompanied by a part-time gillie, Mr Cameron. Barrie’s dialogue sharply brings out the contrast between the upper class attitudes of James and the intellectually superior views of Cameron, a crofter’s son training to be a minister.

 

Theatre Alba, under the direction of Charles Nowosielski, has assembled a strong cast. Romana Abercromby’s portrayal of Mary Rose is most impressive. Every movement and gesture conveys her childlike character. Reviewing Mary Rose with its complexity can only scratch the surface of the play. Too much detail will give away how the drama builds to an intensely moving and emotional climax. This production is a very complete theatrical experience.

* * * * *

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Scottish Storytelling Centre

 

With minimal set and strong attention to atmosphere, Theatre Alba give a very welcome production of Peter Pan creator JM Barrie's little-performed ghost play, Mary Rose.

 

They create a glistening and eerie heart to a tale which moves from a foreboding old house in the English countryside up to the lochs of the Outer Hebrides. On the way they depict a story which owes more to Scottish folk tales than to scary scream-fests. Indeed, if this has any structural shortcomings as a production, it is that the cast and director understand the folk tale part of the play too well - so that the rest is not as truly spooky as it could be.

 

The strength of the production lies in its excellent performances. Particularly from Romana Abercromby as the girl of the title, Mary Rose. She is convincing in every aspect of her character. But in general, the performers shine because they are able to stand back and give the story the space it needs too breath as it moves back and forwards through time. They also do exceptionally well to evoke both the charm and the wilderness of the Outer Hebrides.

 

The central concern is the romance in 1909 between 18 year-old Mary Rose and the slightly older Simon, played by James Ashton. Together they create a real sense of childish enthusiasm as Simon asks her parents for her hand in marriage while she goes upstairs to wait for the good news. Simon Tait and Suzanne Dance create the slightly stuffy parents in such a way as to make the secret they have to tell Simon about their daughter all the more credible. A secret which is kept from her, even though it concerns an event which happened to her when she was 12.

 

The family were holidaying on the Hebrides. Mr Moreland would leave Mary Rose alone to paint on a beautiful little island while he fished in the loch. On the last day of the holiday she disappeared without trace from her usual spot - only to reappear a month later acting as if she had never been away. As the story progresses, it is Romana Abercromby's strong sense of Mary Rose's childishness that lingers.

 

While the characters around her mature, and in particular Simon becomes all the more priggish, she seems to retain a level of playfulness only natural in a 12-year-old. Only Mr Cameron, a gillie played with calm self-assurance by Robert Williamson, is really in tune with her ways.

 

Ghost stories demand not just a willing suspension of disbelief from the audience but also the right atmosphere in which they can do so within a logical framework. It is Williamson's real gift to be able to provide that. Not all the performances are as strong, however. And while Ann Lannan is suitably crabbit as the housekeeper at the foreboding old house, Marcus McLeod does not convince as a younger man who has come to see round the old place. It is not enough, however, to detract from the whole production's satisfying tingle of a ghostly apparition.

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By JM Barrie

Theatre Alba

Scottish Storytelling Centre

***

 

If Film Four could programme old black and white theatre for their matinees, this play would certainly be a firm favourite. Fitting perfectly into its 3pm slot, the traditionally staged production slowly unfolds its winding and intriguing plot of supernatural goings on with the gentle pace of a well-thumbed classic.

 

JM Barrie's ghostly tale shifts between turn of the twentieth century and the 1940s, unveiling the fate of young Mary Rose as her spooky past on a deserted Scottish island makes an eerie resurfacing once she is happily married. The plot is carefully teased out, and much of the supernatural elements are left unresolved and unexplained, adding to the mystery.

 

The capable cast convincingly deliver the story, and Romana Abercromby in the title role bubbles with the effervescence of an Enid Blyton heroine. Theatre Alba will not win any prizes for originality with this production but it makes for a lovely and gently thrilling afternoon.