The Way the Land Lies

A strong stomach for both poor acting and indigestible Scots accents is needed for this chronicle of rural life in a remote glen. The protagonists grow up together in a childhood idyll, but their lives are slowly borne down upon by long-held grudges and sadnesses they cannot lose.

While small-town life can be a rich terrain for theatre, this production fails to raise much in the way of issues. A teenage girl runs around the stage awkwardly to represent Time, but this rendering is heavy-handed and deeply unconvincing. To make matters worse, the character has no decent lines, no thought-provoking comments, and all of her jokes fall utterly flat.

There is supposedly something ingenious about having Time skipping and prancing willfully along in the guise of a young girl, rather than plodding like the traditional Old Father figure, but in truth, it fails to tie this idea into the main story, which would fare far better on its own without the clumsy personification.

The rest of the cast appear to be playing themselves, and thereby capture fairly successfully the interactions between a group of Glen inhabitants. However, this simple play comprises ordinary folks having ordinary conversations, and this motif is not sufficient to hold the attention of the audience throughout the performance.

Though the storyline is actually quite neat and not overblown, its potential to be highly affecting - it concerns forced marriages, suicide and childhood friendships torn apart by class and love - is somehow never realised, creating a highly unsatisfactory whole.