The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart
Presented by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.
Created by David Greig (writer) and Wils Wilson (director) for the National Theatre of Scotland. Designed by Georgia McGuinness. Composer/Musical Director: Alasdair Macrae. Movement Director: Janice Parker. Casting Director: Anne Henderson. Srage Manager: Gary Morgan.
Text-based but intently physicalized, The Stange Undoing of Prudencia Hart fills the Wicked Wolf Tavern with thought-provoking palaver and spirited fun. Photo by Drew Farrell.
With just the right mix of storytelling savvy, sinuous musicianship and insouciance, five actors from the National Theatre of Scotland take over the large back room of the Wicked Wolf Tavern (formerly the Playwright) and spin a tale of romance, snowfall, soullessness and honor. They take their time—millennia of it—and let you relax in a pub while pondering all this mortality and magic.
The plot threads of the expansive folk tale can unravel quickly if you’re not paying attention. It’s easy to lose your place (especially with the loud air conditioning system competing with the actors’ unmicrophoned voices in certain parts of the room), until you realize that this is essentially Doctor Faustus (right down to the protagonist being a disenchanted scholar, albeit a woman this time) with a little of the Eurydice or Persephone myth thrown in at the end. The cast keeps it lively—moving about the room, climbing on tables, tinging water glasses to keep your attention. You follow willingly.
The supposed novelty of the piece, however, was somewhat lost on me—and on the hundreds of other theatergoers in town who regularly attend shows at the Yale Cabaret. Like the Wicked Wolf this week, the Cabaret serves food and drink and offers environmentally astute entertainments that are frequently narrative-based and often acknowledge the audience. The Cabaret, which has been doing this for nearly half a century, makes some of the National Theatre of Scotland audience-baiting tricks seem superficial. It’s interesting to note that the Cabaret’s entire summer season this year is, like The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, an exploration of storytelling and folklore and modern attitudes towards those things. The Cabaret’s three shows opened this week, and won’t be open to critics for a couple of weeks yet. It’ll be interesting to see the contrast.
So the National Theatre of Scotland isn’t one of those artistic visits which opens our eyes to new performance possibilities. It’s more like “Oh, they do that there too.” And it must be said that they do with assuredness and verve, easing into the long bout of collective traded-off narration (most of it rhymed and declaratory) with a set of upbeat songs played on fiddle, guitar, bohran and other folk instruments. Full musical numbers enter the main show as well, augmented with ukuleles and tin whistles and even a piano accordion.
It’s the music that makes you lose yourself in the pub atmosphere, and which makes you think Scottish despite the Wicked Wolf’s Irish trappings. The audience-interactive stuff is not as crucial a mood-setter. It’s far from a Tony & Tina’s Wedding improv, yet does wisely insist on keeping its dark tale of deviltry light and funny. Ultimately, it’s not too far from a Tarell Alvin McCraney play—steeped in cultural tradition, lively, but acted out, told to you. It’s a conscious choice to indulge in verbose patter and storytelling suspense, a choice that in The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is underlined by a focus on Robert Burns and literary theory. It may have the traditional feel of Greek drama and epic poetry, but the play pushes a contemporary posture, dropping references to Facebook and Jackie Chan and Samuel Jackson and apps.
Utlimately, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart isn’t as dangerous and risk-taking as its live interactive situation might suggest. It’s interactive only when it wants to be, plucking out a couple of audience members for poking and prodding and inviting everyone to toss ripped-napkin confetti in the air to create a snowstorm. At one point, a cast member notes a “Pause… desultory applause,” and the crowd instinctively understands that they are to clap halfheartedly at that moment. The “spontaneity” is similiarly orchestrated throughout the piece, and isn’t the point of the exercise. What is? The central beguiling story of a woman who’s losing her sense of self, who doesn’t know what to believe in. The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is wonderfully uplifting in how it whisks us into dark places but tickles us out of them. It’s got aspects of a Halloween tale, but it never forgets that it’s summer and that the National Theatre of Scotland has come to town to entertain us while they enlighten us.
The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart at the Wicked Wolf Tavern, via the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Photo by Drew Farrell.