Play inspired by story of slave honoured at theatre awards
It was inspired by the true story of an African slave brought from the Caribbean to Perthshire to work in the home of a plantation owner – and who ended up helping to abolish slavery in Scotland.
Now a new play recalling the remarkable story of Joseph Knight, who spent four years battling to win his freedom in the Scottish courts, has emerged as the big winner in Scotland’s annual theatre Oscars.
Knight, who had met and married a Dundee-born servant of the sugar tycoon, won his case in 1778 – after two appeals – that there was no legal justification for slavery under Scots law.
May Sumbwanyambe’s play Enough Of Him, which toured Scotland last year after being premiered in Perthshire, was honoured with the best new play, best production and best director prizes at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (known as the CATS Awards).
Yesterday’ s awards ceremony took place at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.
Directed by Orla O’loughlin, the co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre focused on the relationships between Knight, Wedderburn, his servant girl, Ann Thompson and his wife, Margaret.
Mark Brown, co-convenor of the judging panel, said: “Enough Of Him is an extraordinary piece about the African slave Joseph Knight and his famously successful bid to achieve his freedom through the Scottish courts.
“The drama imagines, with extraordinary power, the contorted racial, class and sexual politics that must have consumed Ballindean, the Perthshire mansion of Knight’s nominal ‘master’, the slave-plantation owner Sir John Wedderburn.
“May Sumbwanyambe has made a vital contribution to Scotland’s reckoning with its too often neglected role in the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
“The play expresses brilliantly the complexity of the distorted relations between ‘master’ and slave … Its captivating complexity makes it not only a stunning indictment of the moral poison of racism, but also a work of extraordinary emotional, psychological and political immediacy.”
The Scotsman’s theatre critMatthew Pidgeon and Omar Austin in Enough Of Him, which premiered in Perthshire before touring Scotland last year
ic Joyce Mcmillan, who is also co-convener of the awards, said: “Enough Of Him was a stunningly powerful and beautifully realised show, with a magnificent text, which made – and I hope will continue to make – a vital contribution to the evolving debate about Scotland’s historic involvement with the slave trade.”
Pitlochry Festival Theatre was further recognised by the awards when Sally Reid was honoured for outstanding performance for her starring role in a new production of Willy Russell’s play Shirley Valentine.
Stage and screen veteran David Hayman also received an outstanding performance award for his role as a Belfast Loyalist in the recent Tron Theatre production Cyprus Avenue.
Meanwhile, John Mcgrath’s groundbreaking play The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil was honoured for making an outstanding contribution to Scottish theatre, 50 years after it was first staged.
RSNO & RSNO Chorus: Verdi Requiem
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
First performed in a Milan church in 1874, and immediately followed with repeat performances in the Italian city’s iconic opera theatre, Verdi’s Requiem portrays its visionary sacred message unashamedly through secular channels – massive red-blooded chorus and orchestra, offstage fanfares, and a quartet of impassioned operatic soloists squeezing every ounce of emotional meat over an exhaustive 90 minutes.
As such, it was a dramatic powerhouse perfect for this close-of-season spectacular by the RSNO, while also providing a fitting occasion for the orchestra to commemorate the life of its former double bassist John Clark, who died last summer.
Typical of music director Thomas Søndergård, he did not view Verdi’s colossus as an opportunity to throw caution to the wind. That is not his way. Ever cool, calm and calculated, he engineered a performance guided by perceptive definition, natural pacing, patient phrasing and shrewd balance (always a critical factor in a temptingly brass-heavy work).
If that cooled the ardour of certain big-thrill moments – the gathering brass flourish of ‘Tuba mirum spargens sonum’ opened more apologetically than persuasively – it was nonetheless refreshing to hear nuggets of often overlooked detail shine through, such as fine-tuned snatches of woodwind commentary normally subsumed in the wash, or the chorus’ ability to project its theatrical reactions and complex fugues with unforced precision.
The job was made easier for the RSNO Chorus – solidly prepared by chorus director Stephen Doughty, with added voices from his East Lothianbased Garleton Singers and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland students – as Søndergård’s clear, crisp direction ensured a powerfully inclusive response.
Illness meant that two soloists had to be replaced, tenor Peter Auty and soprano Gabriela Scherer joining the magnificent mezzo Jennifer Johnston and stentorian bass George Andguladze. Despite Auty’s over-light upper notes and Andguladze’s flattish intonation, they formed a heart-warming, impassioned ensemble.