Rona Munro’s sequence of performs about Scotland’s Stewart kings was launched on the Edinburgh competition in 2014. Like its three predecessors, masking the reigns of James I, II and III, this newest makes use of actual historic occasions to ask audiences to think about the character of Scottish identification previous and current. Right here, the main target is on the nation’s historical racial diversities, conflicts and prejudices, delivered in a vigorously choreographed and visually spectacular manufacturing from the unique director-designer crew: Laurie Sansom and Jon Bausor, respectively, co-produced by Uncooked Materials and Capital Theatres in affiliation with the Nationwide Theatre of Scotland.
Two fact-based storylines intertwine. A pugnacious James IV (Daniel Cahill) works to safe his throne and dynasty towards martial threats from outdated enemies, England and Highland “rebels”; additionally towards vigorous opposition from his younger, English spouse, Margaret Tudor (Sarita Gabony). In the meantime, two younger black ladies arrive on the Stewart court docket, having been captured by pirates en path to England from Spain. Anne (Laura Lovemore) turns into the intimate servant of Queen Margaret; Ellen (Danielle Jam) is skilled up by the court docket poet William Dunbar (Keith Fleming) to be an entertainer and seems at James’s self-promotional tournaments as “Queen of the Struggle”.
The center of the play is a racist poem by Dunbar, delivered after the second event and addressed to Ellen, Of Ane Blak-Moir (“Of a Blackamoor”). Munro redefines the style of the poem and creates for it a backstory primarily based on jealousy and resentment. These adjustments present an pointless rationale for its supply, finding its racism specifically circumstances relatively than within the (extra possible) ingrained, unexamined attitudes to black folks.
For me, that is the issue with the play as an entire. Though superbly offered and delivered with talent and conviction by a robust ensemble, it makes straightforward narrative selections as an alternative of grappling with the problems it raises. As a pageant it’s participating; as a drama, disappointing.