Theatre review: Viota, Glasgow Tron

TRANSPOSING aspects of Virginia Woolf’s life, and the scandalous love of Vita Sackville-West and Violet Trefusis, on to the radical mood of 1969, this bold production by Theatre Revolution was devised through discussion and improvisation between director Iain McAleese and the cast, with Karen Barclay refining the script after rehearsals.

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As such, it’s very much an actors’ piece. But the playwright has distilled an ebbing and flowing succession of clashes into a simmering triangle between titled outcast and Bloomsbury-survivor Vivien (Frankie MacEachen) and her lodgers – her biographer, the journalist Vicki (Sophia Porter), and trustfund revolutionary Ursula (Erica O’Neill). The Vietnam War, the Moon landing and women’s lib form the backdrop as each struggles to find their identity, their self-imposed inhibitions as formidable as any obstacles imposed by society.

MacEachen capably conveys Vivien’s trepidation and vulnerability, even as she flourishes in the presence of her younger friends, while Porter and O’Neill are equally good as the repressed but ambitious reporter and the protesting-too-much, rebellious little rich girl. There’s solid support from Derek Banner as Vicki’s chauvinist fiancé and Maria MacCormack as batty Aunt Millie, a throwback to Vivien’s former aristocratic life, with the sense of suffocated sexuality palpable.

Although Viota occasionally approaches melodrama, the emotional maelstrom compels throughout.