REVIEW: Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh
By Louise Hemfrey
When James Hogg first tried to publish his novel ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’, he was met with such staunched resilience from the Presbyterian Church that he printed it anonymously. If anyone from the Church of Scotland had bothered to read the novel properly they would have discovered that Hogg was not criticizing religion, or the Church, but the radical, narcissistic clerics who traversed the central belt, and the lowlands imparting the knowledge of who was predestined for what, when only God should be able to determine such things. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, grew up in such a setting but his education in Scottish literature turned him into a Jacobite and a romanticist, he saw a great humour but also a great wrong in the irrational behaviour of these clerics, and the simplicity with which people believed them. Two hundred years on, the first dramatised production, for the stage, was being performed in the Lyceum Theatre and the scene was set for the play to be a masterpiece.
Taking my seat in the theatre, the stage is already dimly lit, eerie plumes of smoke spill over the boards and a chill wafts its way through the auditorium. The stage itself has four daunting, triangular pillars set in a druid-like ring in the centre; each one is a slightly different shape and height, but all are menacingly tall, even for this Victorian theatre. In the forestage there is a rectangular whole in the floor reminiscent of a grave out of which more smoke is drifting. The sound, which cannot be called music, is a foreboding combination of piercing violin strings and feminine ooh’s and ahh’s with intermittent shrieks. And if you were to judge a play purely by its tech and set then this production would certainly be worth five stars, the sound growing with intensity by every act, and the innovation of the rotating columns (yes they moved) to denote the passing of time was quite perfect, however the literature to drama adaptation of the script left my expectations a little unfulfilled.
The novel is divided into three parts, the account of the anonymous Editor, Robert Wrighim’s Confessions, and the finding of his body by none other than a Mr James Hogg in the present – the present for the book being 1820’s. The play by contrast removed the account of the Editor and made the finding of the body the first scene, posting it in present day Scotland with two policemen whose banter was of the most stereotypical Scottish prose. By and by, the policemen collect the memoir from Robert’s cold, dead fingers and begin to read. A far less dead Robert (Ryan Fletcher) then jumps out of the grave-like gap in the stage and begins telling the story of his parents’ unhappy marriage, followed by his conception and youth. All key elements from the book are included, the audience learn of Robert’s mother’s devout, unyielding piety, and his ‘father’s’ profligacy and debauchery which sets the pair in comical permanent frustration. She is a steadfast follower of the Rev. Wrighim (Kern Falconer), a radical Calvinist preacher, who believes he has frequent discourse with God on the subject of predestination; specifically who is predestined for Heaven and who is predestined for hell. Their relationship is brought into question after she has born one son for her husband, and the second son, Robert, is disowned by his father, and so is brought up under the tutelage of the reverend. Robert admits to being a sinful youth: lazy, selfish, easily tempted but somehow he still makes in into the ranks of the chosen. Within minutes of his learning that he is predestined he makes the acquaintance of Gil Martin (Iain Robertson), who basically pours oil on the fire of Robert’s naturally bad nature. Gil Martin, one realizes, is in fact the Devil, he is interested in collecting Robert’s Soul for his ranks of the damned and so carouses Robert into lying, cheating, and murdering his own brother. What follows are various other murders and acts of disgrace, which Robert vehemently denies being the instigator in, until eventually the law catches up with him. Fleeing for his life, he wanders the countryside, desperately trying to avoid Gil Martin, who he is convinced is the real cause of all this trouble.
Of course I wouldn’t want to give away the ending, but the nature of this play was such that it seemed more like a story telling, with little excerpts of drama thrown in at intervals to expand the plot line. Doubling Robert’s role as narrator and protagonist I think was a mistake, using the Editor as a character would have freed Robert up to commit to more of the drama, the Editor, in the book, also adds a rational, outside perspective to the events which is necessary for the kind of sarcasm Hogg was applying to the original text. It didn’t really seem like a play, the acting was good and the effects effective but there was something lacking in performance which left me feeling rather disappointed. For someone who knows the book back to front, there really was no point in going to see such an uninspiring dramatisation.
By Louise Hemfrey
When James Hogg first tried to publish his novel ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’, he was met with such staunched resilience from the Presbyterian Church that he printed it anonymously. If anyone from the Church of Scotland had bothered to read the novel properly they would have discovered that Hogg was not criticizing religion, or the Church, but the radical, narcissistic clerics who traversed the central belt, and the lowlands imparting the knowledge of who was predestined for what, when only God should be able to determine such things. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, grew up in such a setting but his education in Scottish literature turned him into a Jacobite and a romanticist, he saw a great humour but also a great wrong in the irrational behaviour of these clerics, and the simplicity with which people believed them. Two hundred years on, the first dramatised production, for the stage, was being performed in the Lyceum Theatre and the scene was set for the play to be a masterpiece.
Taking my seat in the theatre, the stage is already dimly lit, eerie plumes of smoke spill over the boards and a chill wafts its way through the auditorium. The stage itself has four daunting, triangular pillars set in a druid-like ring in the centre; each one is a slightly different shape and height, but all are menacingly tall, even for this Victorian theatre. In the forestage there is a rectangular whole in the floor reminiscent of a grave out of which more smoke is drifting. The sound, which cannot be called music, is a foreboding combination of piercing violin strings and feminine ooh’s and ahh’s with intermittent shrieks. And if you were to judge a play purely by its tech and set then this production would certainly be worth five stars, the sound growing with intensity by every act, and the innovation of the rotating columns (yes they moved) to denote the passing of time was quite perfect, however the literature to drama adaptation of the script left my expectations a little unfulfilled.
The novel is divided into three parts, the account of the anonymous Editor, Robert Wrighim’s Confessions, and the finding of his body by none other than a Mr James Hogg in the present – the present for the book being 1820’s. The play by contrast removed the account of the Editor and made the finding of the body the first scene, posting it in present day Scotland with two policemen whose banter was of the most stereotypical Scottish prose. By and by, the policemen collect the memoir from Robert’s cold, dead fingers and begin to read. A far less dead Robert (Ryan Fletcher) then jumps out of the grave-like gap in the stage and begins telling the story of his parents’ unhappy marriage, followed by his conception and youth. All key elements from the book are included, the audience learn of Robert’s mother’s devout, unyielding piety, and his ‘father’s’ profligacy and debauchery which sets the pair in comical permanent frustration. She is a steadfast follower of the Rev. Wrighim (Kern Falconer), a radical Calvinist preacher, who believes he has frequent discourse with God on the subject of predestination; specifically who is predestined for Heaven and who is predestined for hell. Their relationship is brought into question after she has born one son for her husband, and the second son, Robert, is disowned by his father, and so is brought up under the tutelage of the reverend. Robert admits to being a sinful youth: lazy, selfish, easily tempted but somehow he still makes in into the ranks of the chosen. Within minutes of his learning that he is predestined he makes the acquaintance of Gil Martin (Iain Robertson), who basically pours oil on the fire of Robert’s naturally bad nature. Gil Martin, one realizes, is in fact the Devil, he is interested in collecting Robert’s Soul for his ranks of the damned and so carouses Robert into lying, cheating, and murdering his own brother. What follows are various other murders and acts of disgrace, which Robert vehemently denies being the instigator in, until eventually the law catches up with him. Fleeing for his life, he wanders the countryside, desperately trying to avoid Gil Martin, who he is convinced is the real cause of all this trouble.
Of course I wouldn’t want to give away the ending, but the nature of this play was such that it seemed more like a story telling, with little excerpts of drama thrown in at intervals to expand the plot line. Doubling Robert’s role as narrator and protagonist I think was a mistake, using the Editor as a character would have freed Robert up to commit to more of the drama, the Editor, in the book, also adds a rational, outside perspective to the events which is necessary for the kind of sarcasm Hogg was applying to the original text. It didn’t really seem like a play, the acting was good and the effects effective but there was something lacking in performance which left me feeling rather disappointed. For someone who knows the book back to front, there really was no point in going to see such an uninspiring dramatisation.