Just getting to this new production by Edinburgh s acclaimed Grid Iron1 feels like an act of theatre. A chartered bus takes you through the security fence around the Port of Dundee, past the twinkling lights of three oil exploration rigs, and deposits you outside Shed No.
36, the latest venue for these site-specific specialists. It is a suitably industrial environment to explore the global oil business, a sector that powers the world economy but exacts an often high cost for those it touches. Some of this is familiar territory for Scottish theatre-goers. A revival of John McGrath s 1973 play The Cheviot, the Stag & the Black, Black Oil2, which touches on similar themes, is currently touring.
Crude, written and directed by Grid Iron s Ben Harrison, consciously echoes The Cheviot s polemical blend of drama and music.
The new work even borrows its forerunner s cheerfully rapacious oil man Texas Jim to tell the tale of capitalist exploitation. But this is no slavish copy. Crude tells its story through a series of vignettes featuring people in and around the industry. It centres on Mike, an oil worker suffering the familial effects of brutal North Sea shifts, who then falls victim to the discontents created by drilling off western Africa. When a Niger Delta militant demands to know what Mike is doing there, it is a question the show as a whole is seeking to answer. Knitting together big-picture themes and personal traumas is a challenge and Crude s hard-working cast do not always pull off their brief dramatic encounters.
But Kirsty Stuart is terrific as both Kerry and Angela, one a grasping wife pushing Mike back offshore, the other a hard-driving oil executive using him for casual pleasure.
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Shed No 36 itself is another star of the show. Its cold, echoing space, in the past used for oil rig fabrication, makes for mushy acoustics. But it brings its own drama to the production, especially when the spotlights picking out a character suspended from a climbing rope also illuminate the complex steel gantries above her head. Harrison thought of producing Crude on an offshore rig, before deciding that even loyal fans would be deterred by the cost of helicopter hire and safety training. His programme notes hint at regret, but Shed No 36 is a worthy substitute.
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To October 23, gridiron.org.uk5
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References
- ^ Grid Iron (www.ft.com)
- ^ The Cheviot, the Stag & the Black, Black Oil (www.ft.com)
- ^ New hints and tips (www.ft.com)
- ^ More tips (www.ft.com)
- ^ gridiron.org.uk (www.gridiron.org.uk)
