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… The title of this modest 80 minute piece might be said to be misleading given the substantial role for a stuffed sheep called Fenella – clearly not a man. But really it is about a father and son and how they dealt with the premature loss of their wife/mother.
It opens with the son arriving in a remote corner of Ardnamurchan where his father had been a crofter, clutching the urn which holds his father’s ashes. The father duly appears, at much the same age as the son is now, and they chew over the sorts of things that fathers and sons really ought to talk about more but rarely do until one or other of them is dead: how the son became a photographer because of his father’s hobby; why the son stayed in Glasgow when his father went to work the croft and why he wants to come back there now; how the father was content in the wind and rain and the hard labour of surviving off the land in the far west of the Highlands, before the telephone and even electricity had found its way down the long Ardnamurchan peninsula. …
It could have been grimly drab, or portentously lyrical. But Nunn shows once again what a skillful writer he is because his script is witty, tender, and full of interest. Involving the composer Eddie McGuire was also a key move. His series of pieces for solo flutes of various sizes (very well played by Katie Punter) punctuate, comment on, animate and even argue with the two men.
Callum Cuthbertson and James McAnerney, as son and father, respectively respond well to Katherine Morley’s unfussy direction. …
Robert Dawson Scott
I have just been to see Only the Men at Craigellachie. I throughly enjoyed the performance, I was transported to Sanna and I found myself on the verge of tears as well as in stitches at times. I thought having the flute in the performance added to the atmosphere.I have to say my favourite part was when they were watching the birds…just beautiful however I thought building a whole byre was a great idea and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the end but it added a poignancy to the ending.
Congratulations… yes I would recommend it to anyone and to think that I nearly had to go to a works meeting instead!
I don’t think I have seen any other plays by Reeling and Writhing but will keep a look out for them and it is just an absolute treat to see such brilliant theatre so close to home without having to go to Aberdeen or other large centre! Just smashing.
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Just seen Only the Men at CCA – the first R&W show I’ve been to – and enjoyed it very much. I bought a ticket because Eddie McGuire mentioned the play at a BBC SSO concert in the City Hall last week. I found it quite moving. I see from the programme that it was inspired by writing of Alasdair Maclean, one of my favourite poets. I’ll certainly come to future shows & recommend them to friends & family.
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We really enjoyed the performance and the ambience in spite of the scanty audience. Everyone was thoroughly engaged with the story and the atmosphere and the poignancy. Katie Punter not only played wonderfully but had a sort of fey presence which lent magic to the drama and heightened the emotional impact; I loved the moment when son and father sat down side by side, and the soliloquies with the urn! We too were very taken with the landscape and the pathos of those abandoned dwellings, half completed peat diggings at the heart of that old old volcano etc but I liked the way the father sent his son on his way to live his own life and not get trapped by nostalgia.
I guess we all have moments like these which makes it a universal story over and above the Sanna one.
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Really enjoyed “Only The Men” last night at Kingussie. I thought Fenella stole the show. I loved the way the son and father interacted and the setting of Sanna Bay. As a small child we used to go to Sanna on holiday regularly and I remember the black rocks, the white sand, the waves and the way the sun always shone! … I’ve never seen any of your other productions but would definitely come and see another one if it was showing reasonably locally. We travelled 45miles to come and see the play last night and it was well worth it.
Keep up the good work.
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Just a note of appreciation for the superb performance of ‘Only the Men’ at Kingussie on 24 October. The play had me laughing one minute (mainly at the conversations with Fenella) and near to tears the next with the different memories of the men about what had, or had not happened.
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Just seen “Only the Men” at CCA (1 Nov) – the first R&W show I’ve seen – & enjoyed it very much. I see in the programme that it was inspired by one of my favourite poets Alasdair Maclean. I found it a very moving piece. Will certainly try to come to future shows. Many thanks & best wishes.
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Hauntingly beautiful: utterly magical! The exquisite balance between the words, music and acting/directing was spell-binding. The climax was such that one had to be alone with one’s overwhelming feelings.
(Courtesy of our good friends Laura and Sarah.)
Tim
The first preview for ‘Only the Men’ was last night and I thought this might be a good time to list some of the things I like about my job (in no particular order):
- Hearing the first titter of laughter from an audience because of a line I’ve written.
- Having strange ideas and seeing them turn into reality (well, not really reality but you know what I mean).
- Seeing an actor turn a piece of household furniture into a mountain and believing every second of the climb.
- All the amazing people who work in theatre.
- Working with Katherine.
- Learning lots of new things all the time.
- Finding all the different ways that collaboration can happen.
- Music.
- The stomach churn before a show starts.
- Applause.
- Having an idea, researching it, sitting alone and writing it.
- Discovering what other people find when they read what I write.
- Surprise.
- Occasionally making myself cry when I write something sad.
- Seeing characters come alive when great actors get inside them.
- Discovering what audiences find when they see what I have written performed.
- Sucking people in to an intense emotional experience.
- Sitting at the back of the rehearsal room, watching and listening.
- Making things.
- The moment when the stomach churn relaxes.
- Having a pint after.
The last week of rehearsal – technical rehearsal. For anyone who doesn’t know about ‘tech weeks’ let me explain. This is the time when all the elements of the show come together: actors, light, set, sound and if there’s anything else, that too. It’s an incredibly exciting time, but also often very slow and methodical.
For ‘Only the Men’ the tech week is mainly about lighting as we have been working with our set and sound throughout the rehearsal. Our lighting designer, Grahame Gardner, is a wonderfully talented man and fantastic to work with. He’s also a dab hand with knots which has been very useful in the last day or so.
There is something very magical about the moment when the working lights are turned off and the stage lights start doing their work. The transformation of the bare stage into shape, colour and expanse is always beautiful to watch. The set, costumes and, sometimes, even the actors will never look better. But the real magic is in the subtle transformations that happen constantly, changing times of day, locations or simply moods. For ‘Only the Men’ the lighting will help us pass from the beach to the top of a windy high peninsular head and to an old crofting home. There’s one other location that Grahame will be going to town with but I’m not going to mention it here in case the reader is coming to see the show.
Up to this moment the lighting design has only existed in Grahame’s head so this is our own chance for some drama to see it unfold.
And so to work…
Tim
We all had a great day in rehearsal. Lots done and some good creative breakthroughs. But of all the great things there was one stand-out totally incredible and beautiful great thing, thanks to Mr Eddie McGuire.
I wrote the other day that Eddie was off writing a culminating piece. He arrived with it at lunchtime yesterday (Tuesday) after having had his brief on Friday. While we took Eddie for a bowl of soup in the CCA cafe Katie read through the score. So, Eddie wrote this piece in just a few days and Katie had about 30 minutes to read the score. Eddie gave Katie some thoughts on tempo and then she began.
The piece lasts about 4 minutes and at the end of it I was welling up, Katherine was too. It is the most beautiful and powerful piece of music. Eddie has taken all the emotion of the play and concentrated it into those few minutes. It is wonderfully powerful on the alto-flute. As it builds in waves the characters and elements of Sanna portrayed in ‘Only the Men’ are revealed and flung at the ear. Eddie is a genius! I wish I could write more but my vocabulary is limited by not giving away the purpose of the music in the play.
Katie played it twice, did an astonishing and powerful job with the tiny amount of time she had to familiarise herself with the piece, and managed to get heartburn.
When Katherine and I set up Reeling & Writhing one of our biggest goals was to create theatre that used music to propel the performances with and as much as the text. We want to capitalise upon the inherent physical performance in the creation of music as well as the music itself. We are not seeking a soundtrack to the words but for a musical experience as well as a textual one. We want our musicians to be seen and to be appreciated for their contribution in the same way as the actors. And most of all we want to use the capacity of music to reach new emotional intensities and expressions. ‘Only the Men’ will be a very big step forward to achieving that goal.
Thank you Eddie, and Katie.
