Our Soldier is not Your Daddy's Macbeth

You are reading the Vile Blog, Scotland's only blog dedicated to the ego of one lone critic who believes theatre can save the world. Today I am delighted to welcome Mr Joel Gatehouse, who has a show on at Zoo.

Now, I have start off by saying that I am suffering from Fringe Fatigue. I also have Adaptation Allergy, and a Macbeth Myopia. In other words, I am tired, grumpy and can't see the point in any more adaptations of the Scottish play. And yet, you are up here with a piece that is likely to irritate me beyond measure...

Well, there certainly seem to be lot of Bloodstained Hands and soldiers with dangerously ambitious spouses up at the Fringe this year. In fact, Macbeth isn't the only story we're seeing being retold, reinvigorated or rehashed. Multiple Miss Julies, lots of Lears... And exactly how many plays about soldiers are there? 

But the argument we make is that, although the many similar stories might be old and all too familiar, the message behind them rarely is. For us Fools it's not about the stories you tell but instead about how you tell them. We're handing out badges saying "Shakespeare stole ideas too" as a reminder to our audience that it's not about creating something no one has ever thought of before, but instead about truly owning the stories you tell. 

A Strange Wild Song and Grit are two shows about children effected by war at Bedlam this year. Yet they are two loveably unique shows that tell two very different stories in completely different ways. 

Our soldier contains exactly zero lines of Shakespeare's text. What does that make it? A adaptation? A reinterpretation? Does it matter? We think it doesn't and you'll come out at the end not talking about Shakespeare but about a lovably foolish war correspondent and a charismatic soldier. 

Okay, I'll show a grudging respect for your complete eradication of Shakespeare's text: if I heard another speech about a "a dagger before me" spoken by a bloke wearing a sub-machine gun, I'd be on the phone to Doctor Who to ask who is messing about with the space-time continuum. Then again, what's left of Macbeth if you get rid of the language? Is it a story about murder, the importance of having children to continue your legacy, or the problems or spending too much time trying to pick up weird sisters in the Forest?

So much is left! The power of a prediction. Of fate. The irresistible forces that push us everyday. Guilt. So much guilt. In Our Soldier we directly relate the guilt of a child stealing a Flump from her Grandma's purse to sending your husband off to kill someone... Possibly not the most obvious connection but for Alice Coggins, our plucky war correspondent, it's the only way she can relate to the horrific situation unfolding in front of her. 

Our Weird Sisters are Dali-esque businessmen with briefcases for heads, Half blind they select "Our Soldier" for greatness and the action of the play is set in motion. We ask the question "what if no one was left to tell this story of the boys and girls who are sent off to another country to play at war"? Not to make some vague political point about UK foreign policy but instead to make people connect with a story that is very much our story. Of our times. And no one else's. 

Perhaps you're right that we don't need a Macbeth set on the international space station or Much Ado About Nothing where they communicate only via Facebook but it might just capture something about right now that wasn't true yesterday... or that will be true tomorrow. That for us is the very thing that makes theatre so special. It's ability to react to the spirit of our times. 

Okay, I am starting to like this. By abandoning the original script, you've given yourselves free reign to explore the ideas and make it relevant again: much like the way the great Greeks did with the myths, showing respect to the source material as inspiration, not as the definition of how the story has to go. One last question before you go, then: how did you make the work and for a lazy critic like me, what categories does the production fall into - is it devised, physical, comedy or what?

We started by going through the play looking at the actions of the text rather than any psychology or language used. From this we created a framework in which to play around in. We improvise, mess around, try to make each other laugh. It was really important for us to find some light in a piece filled with so much darkness and our bumbling war correspondent helps this on its way. Our style is undeniably physical and visual and you'll find us in the Physical Theatre and Dance section of the fringe programme. 

We're at the Zoo (Monkey House) at 3PM and we'd love to see you there!

Mack is back!