Tramway, Glasgow
Four stars
In the year 2038, a researcher may hungrily
pounce on this review. It may, by then, be the last fragment of evidence about
a show that took place in Glasgow in June 2013.
The researcher will not know whether to trust me.
I may, for example, be like Keith Bruce of the Glasgow Herald who wrote a
review, seemingly published in the late 1980s, of an all-night performance in
which a "few hardy souls . . . were rewarded with an experience none of us
will forget". Except everyone did forget. Today, you'll be hard pressed to
find anyone who remembers Paul Bright and his adaptation of James Hogg's
ground-breaking 1824 novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a
Justified Sinner.
Some people, in this NTS/Untitled Projects collaboration,
do claim to remember. Actor George Anton, who tells the story of his
involvement in Bright's wayward performances, shows us interviews with
luminaries such as Tim Crouch, Alison Peebles and Giles Havergal who reflect on
his legacy. Katie Mitchell
talks about Bright ranting about one of her shows at the Gate and Annie
Griffin recalls him
reworking an entire 1989 production seven days before opening night.
These narrators, however, are as unreliable as
Robert Wringhim, the fanatical sinner of Hogg's novel. Just as we are never
certain whether Robert's nemesis Gil-Martin is the devil made flesh or a
projection of a troubled mind, so we can never fully trust the archive evidence
about Bright.
Anton, meanwhile, is like the editor in Hogg's
novel, sifting through the scraps of evidence, much of which is on display in
the accompanying exhibition. Suddenly you realise Stewart Laing's head-spinning
production is not a City of Culture
documentary at all, but a dazzlingly faithful adaptation of the novel. But you only
have my word for that.
©Mark Fisher
Until 29 June (0845 330 3501). Details: www.nationaltheatrescotland.com
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