After the highs of the performance (and well-earned holidays all round), ‘Staging and Representing the Scottish Renaissance Court’ moves into its next phase, reflecting upon what the performances of A Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis at Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle during  June 2013.

Below is an interview with Billy Riddoch, who played Flatterie in the Thrie Estaitis, talking about his involvement with the play in the past and his experience of performingit in its entirety this time, which enabled him to get a sense of the whole shape of the piece as an actor.  He discusses how he approached the performance of a Vice role, working alongside Jimmy Chisholm and Barrie Hunter.  Billy also considers the play’s importance for the Scottish dramatic canon, linking it to Scottish independence and suggesting that a nationwide tour would be appropriate for this uniquely Scottish work.  The interview was filmed against the backdrop of Linlithgow Palace, and the background of the final performance on 9th June.

We did a full-run of the play today: part 1 in the morning, and part 2 in the afternoon.  It was especially good to see the ensemble nature of performance between Flattery, Falsehood and Deceit developing.  There was much laughter in the rehearsal room at the trio.  What Tom noted the other day about Gerda’s performance in Part 2 is also true of part 1, Good Counsel really emerges as a voice of reason against the sheer exuberance and chaos in this hald.  This is especially evident when she is rejected from the court, but reacts by saying, “Sen at this time I can get na presence,/ Is na remeed but take in patience” and goes quietly into a corner to read her Bible.  Against all the madness, she is an oasis of calm.

In the afternoon we looked at Part 2.  At one point I found myself sitting in the ‘field’ taking photos of the parliament and it was an interesting experience.  Even though you are spatially excluded to some extent, the fact that action is happening all around you and that you are seated so close to the parliament means that you become a really active listener.  I was reminded of James V’s publication of The New Actis and Constitutionis in 1542 – readers of which might not have been able to alter the legislation but were nevertheless privy to previously closed institutional processes.  Maybe this is a dramatic equivalent of such publication of parliamentary proceedings.

We also staged the arse-kissing divorce.  Pictures speak louder than words!

In the morning we looked at the opening of the parliament, and there was lots of discussion about the extent of the political discord John the Commonwealth invokes when he enters the parliament.

Peter Kenny (playing the Pardoner and the Abbot) bought up how the word ‘murmel’ (Merchant, ‘How we shall slaik the great murmel?’ and Temporality, ‘to save us frae murmel’) is used in the play to signify social discontent.  The problem or ‘murmel’ is dealt with to some extent by absorbing John into the parliament and making him the fourth estate, but the actor Gerda Stevenson pointed out that there is also something very puritanical and extreme about John the Commonweal’s suggested reforms.  Tom Betteridge said that John’s presence has been produced by the failure of the Commonwealth, and Greg Walker added that there is an anxiety about the forces that have been unleashed by his appearance, and how wide-reaching and oppressive the reforms he suggests might be.

John’s speech at lines 2605-2619 took quite some unpacking to work out exactly who the targets of his censure are – is it the entertainers he is getting at or noble excess? In fact it took all morning to work through lines 2347-3115, paraphrasing them into the vernacular.  After lunch we worked through the actual text.  This is a really key part of the text; the meat of the disagreement, arguably the heart of the play.

We staged the estates gangand backwart into parliament and John’s louping of the stank, and it was great to see these inherently theatrical moments on their feet for the first time having thought about them on the page for so many months.  The backwards motion of the estates results in their bumping into each other, making a point about the realm’s disorder as much as it heightens the comedy.

We discovered that the staging of this section would be dependent on whether we saw the audience as part of the parliament or whether we see them as excluded from it.  This is an important production choice. The actors explored some of the confines of our recreative staging; their inclination to use all the space and address the audience as much as possible was in tension with a political space that is exclusive and accessible only to few.

We finished the day by looking at how Oppression, Falsehood and Deceit get put in the stocks.  Again the inside/outside of the parliament was one of the features that needed attention.  In fact the spatial vocabulary of political space took precedence all day, giving the opportunity to take some great pictures!