Theatre reviews: Chalk Walk | An Isolated Incident

A bright morning in Edinburgh with a dusting of snow and a chilly east wind; and I am off to a live show for the first time in 11 months. In the lee of the Scott Monument, an actor awaits; but today Neil John Gibson is not so much an actor as just another human being, someone I haven’t met before, with whom I’m going to take a walk. On the ground, there are two chalk squares the regulation two metres apart, marked Neil and Joyce; we stand on them, Neil hands me a nice piece of chalk in a bag (sanitised of course), and we set off.

It’s possible to take part in Ben Harrison’s Chalk Walk (****) in four locations across Edinburgh – the city centre, Leith, Canonmills and Portbello; best known as artistic director of the Grid Iron company, Harrison is a north Edinburgh man, and for this project – created with Neil John Gibson and co-deviser Emma Snellgrove – he is strictly respecting the rules of lockdown. So for us, this bright morning, it’s up the Mound and into the courtyard of the Assembly Hall, to commune for a minute with the statue of John Knox; we talk about Liz Lochhead’s masterpiece, or mistresspiece, the 1987 play Mary Queen Of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off. Then up onto the Castle Esplanade, for two contrasting views of the city, north and south; there are blasts of sunshine, and whirls of snow.

Down the Lawnmarket, and around Parliament Square; and we talk, as strangers do, about life and death and bereavement, and how lockdown has changed the way we spend our days, and which screen dramas have meant something to us during this time. We talk about the television series It’s A Sin, and about the brave early plays about Aids that were written in the 1980s and early 90s; from Parliament Square, Neil notices the rainbow flag flying above the City Chambers to mark LGBTQ+ history month, and writes a purple chalk message on the pavement, directing people’s attention to it. Then we walk down North Bridge and back along Princes Street, talking about theatre and how we miss it, and Scottish independence, and every other topic of the day.

Would I have liked a little more deliberate structure to the experience, a moment when it was absolutely my turn to make a chalk mark on the ground, if I felt that I could? Perhaps; I forgot about my piece of chalk completely, and only found it in my pocket when I reached home. As walking companions go, though, Neil John Gibson is a star, open, kindly, quirky, interesting and interested, and a wonderful listener. And in these days, the chance to walk and talk with a stranger is a precious thing, worth turning to the light, examining and valuing, against the backdrop of the transformed city; which is exactly what Harrison and the team have achieved, with this simple but unforgettable response to the times.

Online, meanwhile, the torrent of creativity from erstwhile theatre folk continues; and the actor and playwright Kenny Boyle makes a stylish and striking contribution to Scotland’s online lockdown drama scene with An Isolated Incident (****), a 40-minute play in the form of a series of short monologues about loss and dislocation, sometimes caused by the pandemic, sometimes brought to the surface by it. In six beautifully named miniature films – Time Traveller, Vampire, Cherubim, Werewolf, Atlas and Orpheus, all illustrated with glorious film of Scottish landscapes from the Borders to the Outer Hebrides – Boyle produces passages of beautiful and dazzling writing for five different voices, shot through with classical and mythical references that throw a sharp light on the epic quality of the change through which we have lived; while his team of four supporting actors – Karen Bartke, Natalie Clark, Gillian Massey, and John Michael-Love – effortlessly bridge the gap between the epic tone of Boyle’s dramatic poetry, and the fierce connection with lockdown-related social issues, from depression to domestic violence, that also shapes the piece.

Last June, Scottish Youth Theatre produced their first collection of 2020 Stories, a project in which young writers, often still in their teens, write online lockdown plays to be performed by some of Scotland’s leading professional actors; and if that first collection was impressive, their new batch of 19 films is even more so. In 2020 Stories Part 2 (****), directed with unfailing skill and sensitivity by Sally Reid, my own favourites included Calum Moore’s opening piece Remedy, partly written in haunting couplets, and magnificently performed by Andrew Still; Maureen Carr, heartbreaking and wonderful as a woman trying to contact her dead husband in GR Greer’s Seance; Allan Othieno’s (99 Reasons To Steal) Your Attention, a cry of rage against casual racism performed with wit and passion by Thierry Mabongo; and Richard Conlon in Padraic Riddle’s Who Needs A Nightclub?, recalling a rare pandemic moment of collective celebration on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

There are, though, at least a dozen other films in the collection of equal power, suggesting that the response to this pandemic may produce an outpouring of creative reflection like none we have ever seen before; and raising the question, for Scottish theatre, of whether it will be able to provide a home for that challenging new generation of writers and play-makers, come the day when we are all able to gather together again, in the place we call theatre.

Chalk Walk in Edinburgh until 27 February www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chalk-walk-edinburgh-central-tickets-137920601231; An Isolated Incident is available at www.facebook.com/KennyBoyleOfficial/; 2020 Stories Part 2 is at www.scottishyouththeatre.org

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Theatre reviews: Chalk Walk | An Isolated Incident | 2020 Stories Part 2