Gagarin Way Production Pack by Dundee Rep Theatre

GAGARIN WAY PRODUCTION PACK

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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GAGARIN WAY PRODUCTION PACK

CONTENTS 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 15 16 21

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THE COMPANY PROGRAMME WELCOME REHEARSAL PHOTOS PRODUCTION PHOTOS MEET THE DIRECTOR MEET THE CAST MEET THE DESIGNER THE MODEL BOX TALKBACK TEASER TRAILER PRESS PREVIEWS PRESS REVIEWS

GAGARIN WAY PRODUCTION PACK

Dundee Rep Tue 16 Oct - Sat 3 Nov 2018

GAGARIN WAY By Gregory Burke

CAST Ewan Donald

Eddie

Michael Moreland

Gary

Barrie Hunter

Frank

Ross Baxter

Tom

CREATIVE TEAM Cora Bissett

Director

Emily James

Designer

Katharine Williams

Lighting Designer

Niroshini Thambar

Composer/Sound Designer

Emily Winter

Assistant Director

EmmaClaire Brightlyn

Fight Director

John Winchester

Associate Fight Director

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PROGRAMME

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Photo: Sean Millar

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WELCOME

When Andrew asked me to come and direct Gagarin Way here at the Rep, I will admit I was excited and hesitant in equal parts to begin with. Gagarin Way first exploded on to the Scottish then world stage 17 years ago with such blazing effect, timeliness and urgency, to become something of a Scottish classic. It’s hard to know how you approach that play almost two decades on in a very different world where seismic events have occurred, shaped and changed us. And yet, in a play which asks serious questions about a community which has been repeatedly failed by economics, and you have at the core characters searching for a political belief system which would give them some sort of control of their world, you have at once a play which speaks to the moment very differently and vitally each time it is staged. And right now in a world where global politics govern so much of our lives, the play feels almost prophetic. It was well documented at the time that Gregory wrote the play as a bit of an experiment, having very little or no theatre experience, having dropped out of an Economics degree at Stirling Uni. This feels incredible when you first read the play, which is a brilliantly structured bullet-proof page turner, which he disguises as a laugh out loud black comedy, then lulls you into thinking it’s a popular styled heist story, before you gradually realise this is a deeply moral play asking big questions about where can the average person place any belief, hope or faith in any party or political system. I love the authenticity and music of the Fife dialect which Gregory so masterfully captures. Being a Fifer myself, the rapid fire nihilistic rants of Eddie were strangely redolent of the lads from the desolate ex-mining towns of Methil, Cardenden or Lochgelly whom I was at school with. It would be easy to simply play the characters as stock roles - psychopath, deluded old communist, corporate baddie; naive idealistic student. However, I think what myself and the cast all enjoyed mining from the script was the fragility and contradictions in each of these men, as Eddie notes “There’s a crisis of masculinity happening, didn’t you know?” I think in each of them, under the bravado, the jadedness, the misguided complete adherence to an outdated notion, is a lost man, so failed and forgotten or chewed up and used by the enormous machine of global capitalism, that they have no idea what to hold on to, what might be ‘noble’ or what might make their life meaningful. It’s ridiculously funny, pained, political and tragic in equal parts. Cora Bissett Director

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REHEARSAL PHOTOS

Photos: Sean Millar

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PRODUCTION PHOTOS

Photos: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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MEET THE DIRECTOR

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Hello, I’m Cora Bissett, I’m the Director on Gagarin Way. It feels strange to say that it’s a lot of fun on a play that’s really incredibly violent and dark in many respects but it is that. You quite often find that with the plays that have the darkest themes that you find a kind of playfulness in the room. I think the first big question to myself was would I update it in anyway, would I place it in the here and now? Because I think with any play that you take on you have to ask yourself why are we doing this now? And after a good few reads of it I thought, actually reflecting on it as a piece of work that was written 18 years ago and allowing the audience to make the connections to what’s happening in our world right now in radicalism, in politics, in the crisis of masculinity, the fracture of small towns where industry is lost, actually just let the play speak for itself. We’re 18 years on, has anything changed? That’s for the audience to reflect on really. It’s incredibly funny, I mean Gregory Burke is a very funny playwright. The banter is bang on, the Fife dialect. There is a black camaraderie between the people, they’re coming from absolute opposite ends of the spectrum politically and, kind of, pyschologically as characters and as people but the way that they bounce off each other, it’s a very Fife way of speaking and very funny for all that. You are bounced from pillar to post because you keep getting caught out by really surprising twists in the plot that you just don’t see coming so it’s a real rollercoaster of a piece actually.

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MEET THE CAST

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Ewan Donald: My name is Ewan Donald and I’m part of Dundee Rep Ensemble. I play Eddie, he’s a factory worker, funny, unpredictable, he’s a kind of counterpoint to a lot of the political ideology in the play. You don’t know whether he’s going to hug you or punch you. Michael Moreland: Hi, I’m Michael Moreland. I’m playing Gary. Gary is a factory worker, he’s a very political man, he’s a union member and he’s what you would call old-school left wing. Barrie Hunter: Hi, my name’s Barrie Hunter and I’m playing Frank Van De Hoy in Gagarin Way. Frank is a man who works for the organisation, the company premises that the whole play takes place in but he’s here this evening not of his own doing or volition. He has just woken up to find himself there. Ross Baxter: My name is Ross Baxter and I am one of the Graduates at Dundee Rep this year. I’m playing Tom. Tom is the youngest of the four men in the play. He is a graduate from University, he studied politics for four years and now he works at the computer factory as a security guard. It is filled with dark humour, it talks about the lack of socialism in a place where radicalism is very much at the forefront. Ewan Donald: There’s lots of things thrown in there like globalisation, global warming, political terrorism, anarchism, existentialism and it’s brilliantly written and fast-paced. Michael Moreland: It’s a very funny play but it pulls the rug out from under your feet as well. It’s very exciting and shocking. Barrie Hunter: It’s a fantastic play. It’s a thought-provoking piece of good, loud, sweary, thoughtful wonderment.

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MEET THE DESIGNER

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Hi, I’m Emily James. I’m the Set and Costume Designer for Gagarin Way. Cora and I have worked together on a few productions and it’s fantastic when you’ve developed a really strong relationship with a Director and you almost develop a shorthand for the way you can speak to each other. We literally designed it through a few phonecalls and a few initial images that I had of this roller shutter and I think once that was anchored in place the rest of the set just really came together. I felt that it was really important for me to start by going to visit a computer chip factory and there’s not as many around as there were 20 years ago when the play was first written. I was lucky enough to go and visit one in Fife and have a tour and took loads of photos and really got a sense of the environment that the characters in the play would be working in. The thing that really struck me when I was going around, I really liked the loading bay and I think that’s where I got the first sort of germ of an idea for the play, just how imposing a roller shutter door would be in the set. I think with this show I’ve tried to give the actors a bit of a playground. It’s really nice, all the different levels and everything feels quite industrial and I like that idea that the set will be quite noisy, metal steps and scaffolding. I love where you just have that little lightbulb moment and you have a conversation with the Director and you really feel that you can see the way the design is going to unfold, that’s a really nice moment.

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THE MODEL BOX

Photos: Sean Millar

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Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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TALKBACK

Watch our Talkback with Gagarin Way actors Ewan Donald, Ross Baxter, Barrie Hunter and Michael Moreland.

TEASER TRAILER

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PRESS PREVIEWS The Skinny 11 Oct 2018 Amy Taylor Cora Bissett on her Gagarin Way revival Following her success at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we chat to Cora Bisset about her Dundee Rep revival of Gregory Burke’s sensational debut play, Gagarin Way It’s hard to put into words the effect that Gagarin Way, the first play from a then-unknown Fife playwright called Gregory Burke, had on Scottish theatre after its debut at the Traverse Theatre during the Fringe in 2001. Set in the immediate aftermath of an ill-advised and poorly-thought-out heist, which sees two disillusioned workers kidnap a middle class executive, the play delved deep into the psychological and political aftermath of the loss of industry in Fife. Burke’s characters were simultaneously familiar and empathetic; proud, hardworking communist men, driven to extremes from years of working hard and following the dream, only to find themselves in poorly paid and dead-end jobs, living in towns decimated by the end of various industries. The BBC dubbed it “the most talked about show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe”, and Burke, became the coveted ‘overnight sensation’ of the year. Other rave reviews and sell-out shows followed, a transfer to the National Theatre in London was arranged, and, during its Edinburgh run, one teenage theatre fangirl (yours truly) was even allowed to skive school for the day to see it. The play is an enduring portrait of men under siege, a scathing edict on the irreversible effects of globalism, the failures of capitalism and also of communism. A rich tapestry of rage and regret, dripping with machismo, it is – at first glance – an odd choice for Cora Bissett to direct. Fresh from her own hit at the Fringe (her autobiographical gig theatre piece, What Girls Are Made Of, which was also performed at the Traverse), Burke’s play is an unlikely follow-up project for the award-winning director. Approached by Dundee Rep’s Andrew Panton, who went to the same youth theatre as Bissett, she admits that the play is an unusual choice for her, but Panton wanted to see the play revived by a female team. “[Panton] was very keen to have a female director, and we’ve made it an all-female creative team as well, not [to] be gender fascist about it, just to give it a different energy, just to bring very different perspectives and creative ways in to approaching that text. So, it was a really good idea, and I’m very happy that he did.” But just underneath the surface of the play, according to Bissett, is a story about a group of men in very big trouble. “Scratch the surface and all of those characters are men in crisis really,” Bissett explains. “So, you’ve got two very diametrically opposed people involved in this big act together, for very different reasons. I think one man is doing it for a noble purpose, if misplaced, and the other guy just wants a kick, and then there’s the young student character. There’s men at various stages of their life, who really haven’t found purpose in any of the places they’ve been looking and that’s very distressing. For me, it’s a very fragile play, despite the machismo; just beneath the surface [are] four people who really haven’t found much of anything.”

‘This was written 18 years ago, and for the people that lived in these small towns that industry has left behind, not a hell of a lot has changed’ – Cora Bissett Named after a real street in Lumphinnans in West Fife, which was once well-known for its communist population. Gagarin Way was originally written in 1997 while the UK was in the death throes of a Tory government under John Major. While two decades have passed since then, and we’ve gone from New Labour to a coalition government, back to a Conservative majority, the similarities between our past and our present are clear. As a result, the play maintains an eerie similarity to the late 1990s, from characters working zero-hour contracts, to trickle-down economics. What, if anything has changed since it was staged? “I think it’s striking that the play made such an impact 18 years ago,” says Bissett. “I did toy with the idea of perhaps placing it in the now, but really, we have to reflect on that this was written 18 years ago, and for the people that lived in these small towns, and industry has left them behind, not a hell of a lot has changed. Working conditions for people and the transient-ness of contracts has, if anything, just worsened, so I think it’s actually more prescient.” DUNDEE REP

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The Skinny continued ... Although the play was undoubtedly a success, eventually being translated in 20 languages, it has rarely reappeared on the Scottish stage save for two separate revivals; one by the Comedians’ Theatre Company during the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and another, better-known revival by Rapture Theatre Company in 2011. The burden of restaging such a well-regarded play is heavy, but luckily for Bissett, she has two tricks up her sleeve. The first is that she is from Fife, so she knows the area and its people well. The second is, despite having given Burke work before Gagarin Way was produced (she paid him £150 to write a piece for her Citizone project a few months before the Fringe), she’s never actually seen the play staged before. She explains: “I remember Gagarin Way being on, I think I’d maybe just moved to London, or for some reason I wasn’t around. But I remember hearing news of this piece, and what an impact it was making and what a new voice Gregory was, so I’m really coming to it as a blank canvas, which is maybe good in a way.” Bissett’s unfamiliarity with the play seems to have proven to be helpful, as with no memory of previous productions she is free to do as she likes with this one. But what does Burke think of her reviving his breakout work? “I was about to contact him, just to touch base, because we know each other from way back,” says Bissett. “But he contacted me! Which was lovely. He said, ‘I’m delighted you’re taking it on’, and he said, ‘Look, I’m not precious at all, change what you want, mess it around’, which was incredibly generous of him, but slightly unnecessary because the play is brilliantly tightly structured. It works so brilliantly well.” One of the reasons why the play works just as well now as it did in 2001 is what’s happening in Scotland right now. With industries collapsing and the high street changing rapidly, communities have struggled to adapt to the changes, which is something that Bissett has witnessed, particularly in the small towns of Fife where Gagarin Way’s characters are from. “I’m from Glenrothes, and my parents only moved out of there two years ago, and they said that the town is feeling quite ghostly, and the same in Kirkcaldy. Just so much of the shops in the high street have shut down, industries have collapsed. There’s lots of different reasons; people have moved on and not settled down and brought up families there, you just don’t have that regeneration and fresh blood going into the town. “And then, of course, industries move and are sold to others and they can have people working more cheaply, and that just decimates a town in one swoop. So, I think the play is not a historic piece, it speaks to right now, particularly, those small towns in Fife.”

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The Courier 12 Oct 2018 David Pollock

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The Courier 17 Oct 2018

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Dundee University Review of the Arts 26 Oct 2018 Kai Durkin

A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH CORA BISSET, DIRECTOR OF DUNDEE REP’S GAGARIN WAY What drew you to Gagarin Way? Well, Andrew [Andrew Panton, the artistic director at the Rep] approached me with the play and asked if I wanted to direct, which is unusual for me – I usually come up with and direct my own ideas for plays. But I was drawn to Gagarin Way in part because I’m from Fife; I connected with its themes of small-town poverty even though it was written almost 20 years ago. I also just think it’s a great read. It’s hilarious and shocking. What did the creative team take into consideration when designing the set? We did a lot of research, into factories and around the areas Burke grew up. Our designer [Emily James] visited Gagarin Way and factories in Fife to take pictures. The play was originally set in the basement of a factory, but we decided to do something different by setting it on the factory floor itself. This meant we could have the loading bay door, the outside world standing as a constant threat. It also meant we could be more theatrical, despite the play’s realism. (There’s a moment when a van is revealed behind the door which is very theatrical.) The set is also designed to sort of echo authoritarian Russian Soviet architecture, which reflects the thematic concerns with Communism in the play. Were there any other ways you tried to make this production unique? Well it’s interesting that we’ve got a full female creative team. That was partly Andrew’s thinking, I think, when he asked me; he thought, “okay, we’re going to bring it back, what can we do a bit differently?” … Whether or not that makes a significant difference to what you see onstage ‒ it probably doesn’t, it’s probably just for us to know inside ‒ but I think it’s an interesting process and experiment for a team of women to take on a very male, very violent, very muscular play…It actually felt incredibly organic and natural, it [still] doesn’t feel like that’s remotely a problem, why should it be? So you certainly won’t be getting a “girlified” version of Gagarin Way! …But I think what’s been lovely is that on the set we’ve got a beautiful team of actors, they’re all brilliant. And they’re all lovely men, and it’s been a kind of ideal microcosm of what gender parity can be. You’ve got, essentially, women instructing men…we’re telling them what to do. Essentially, they’re responding to that. And there’s not for one second been a hint “we’re bossing the blokes about”. It’s been a beautiful to-and-froing of ideas and creativity and you just think, “wow, that can work, can that be how it works in the rest of the world [now] please?” What do you most want people to take away from this production? It’s a two-pronged thing. You want audiences to have a good night out. I think they will get that because despite the darkness and the heaviness of the themes it is laugh-out-loud funny. So you have to balance that comedy and not let it override the more serious themes going on. There’s a kind of discourse about different political ideologies, capitalism versus communism. That’s the core of the play, there’s people verbally fighting about ways to live and be…You’re trying to allow those arguments to breathe, and allow the audience intellectually to engage with that, but also you’ve got this bubbling humour all the way underneath… My job is to try and balance that, and let them brush up against each other without one flattening the other.

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PRESS REVIEWS The Herald 19 Oct 2018 Neil Cooper

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THE sound of a computer modem whirring its clunky way into the global village at the start of Dundee Rep’s taut revival of Gregory Burke’s debut play may date its turn of the century setting to what now looks like more innocent times. Seen 17 years on in a world where domestic terrorism and working-class disenfranchisement are both at a premium, the play’s 85-minutes of ideological cut and thrust now looks like a snapshot of a time that might just be the root of the mess we’re in now. Burke’s play is set entirely on the loading bay of a Fife computer parts factory which by now one suspects will have either been turned into luxury loft apartments or else is about to be destroyed by Brexit. The perfect setting then for the potty-mouthed existentialist lit-crit between Ross Baxter’s security guard graduate Tom and Ewan Donald’s smart tough-guy nihilist Eddie. When Michael Moreland’s unreconstructed romantic leftie Gary turns up with Barrie Hunter’s kidnapped company man Frank in tow, any notions of class war blur into a more scattershot form of engagement. The quartet of superb performances drawn out by Bissett put three-dimensional flesh on what could easily be rendered as ciphers in what at times resembles a series of bleakly comic routines. In the current global climate, Eddie seems the most immediately recognisable figure, with Donald playing him brilliantly as a flint-eyed and amoral thrill-seeker happy to take unspecified revenge on whatever’s going. With Frank resigned to his own pointlessness and Tom a pseudo-intellectual whose ideas can be shot down in flames within seconds, it is Gary who is most wounded. Having previously played Tom in the play’s original 2001 production, Moreland here comes of age playing Gary as a sad and slightly desperate figure, a grizzled casualty of his own beliefs with no real appetite for opposition left. With his one chance to make a mark rendered null and void, his revolutionary dreams may be shattered, but he still looks destined to rise again no matter how futile the cause. As with the modem, the future started here.

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The Courier 20 Oct 2018 Dawn Geddes

In a world where we have so much choice, it’s hard to find something that really grabs us. So much of what we see on screen and stage, leaves us indifferent – yeah it was good we’ll say, but soon the experience will be hazy in our minds. I can say with absolute certainty I will never forget seeing Gregory Burke’s Gagarin Way at the Dundee Rep. Directed by the wonderful Cora Bissett, this production is so visceral, so raw and so powerful I could barely slide my eyes away from the stage. Described as a political thriller, it is set in a computer factory in Dunfermline. Without giving too much away, it’s about two disillusioned workers who plan a misguided protest against an unfair capitalist system, and romanticise the days when Fife was socialist, radicalised, and proud of it. But it’s much more. It is everything you could possibly want from a theatre production. It’s also a play that is almost impossible to review without robbing theatre goers of the opportunity to see the production blind, unaware of its many twists and turns. But, what I can tell you is this; the tightly-written script is incredible. There isn’t a single word wasted in this highly-charged drama. The black humour running through Gagarin Way hits the spot each and every time. The laughs come thick and fast, each one louder than the last, and yet there’s an edge to them as the spellbinding drama unfolds, consuming us. The acting is nothing short of brilliant. Michael Moreland is compelling as Gary, Ross Baxter, hilarious and endearing as Tom and Barrie Hunter, sympathetic and thought provoking, as Frank, but it is Ewan Donald, with his utterly electrifying portrayal of Eddie, who sets the stage alight. And finally, Gagarin Way is a masterpiece. I envy each and every one of you who still has the opportunity to go and see it.

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The Scotsman 20 Oct 2018 Joyce McMillan

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WE ARE all, I suppose, sadder and wiser than we were in 2001, in the summer before the 9/11 attacks on the United States; all of us, that is, except the playwright Gregory Burke, whose brilliant and frighteningly prescient debut play exploded on to the Traverse stage that year. Set in the loading bay of a Fife computer parts factory, the play takes its name from a street in Lumphinnans, and often refers back to Fife’s lost tradition of socialist and communist radicalism. In the apparent absence of that old alternative to capitalism, though, the show’s two prime movers – factory workers Eddie and Gary – have decided to take direct action, and express their feelings of rage and dispossession by kidnapping and slaughtering an international consultant who has arrived in Fife to assess the viability of the factory. The brilliance of Burke’s play lies in the clarity and vividness with which he explores the dynamics among the four characters, including naive post-student security guard Tom, and kidnapped consultant Frank, as well as would-be revolutionary Gary, and Eddie, the dedicated man of violence whose famously comic interest in the nihilism of Jean-Paul Sartre turns out to be far from academic; and all of this is captured with searing sharpness in Cora Bissett’s brisk and timely Dundee Rep production, which features impressive performances from Michael Moreland, Barrie Hunter and Ross Baxter as Gary, Frank and Tom, and an outstanding one from a cold-eyed Ewan Donald as Eddie. The brilliance of Burke’s play lies in the clarity and vividness with which he explores the dynamics among the four characters, including naive post-student security guard Tom, and kidnapped consultant Frank, as well as would-be revolutionary Gary, and Eddie, the dedicated man of violence whose famously comic interest in the nihilism of Jean-Paul Sartre turns out to be far from academic; and all of this is captured with searing sharpness in Cora Bissett’s brisk and timely Dundee Rep production, which features impressive performances from Michael Moreland, Barrie Hunter and Ross Baxter as Gary, Frank and Tom, and an outstanding one from a cold-eyed Ewan Donald as Eddie. The message of the play is clear; that if capitalism continues on the brutal neoliberal path described by Frank, then responses to it will become steadily more violent, unpredictable and extreme. And if, 17 years on, the play seems more devastatingly sad, and a little less comic, than in August 2001, that’s perhaps only a measure of the change we’ve seen, from the apparent lightness of this play’s opening, to the true darkness of its end.

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The Stage 22 Oct 2018 Thom Dibdin

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It’s nearly two decades since Gregory Burke’s darkly comic Gagarin Way first burst onto a stage, but Cora Bissett’s new production for the Dundee Rep makes it feel fresher than ever. It is as brutal an expression of the destructive forces of international capitalism as it ever was – all that is missing is the term “neoliberalism” as left-wing idealist Gary (Michael Moreland) and uptight Eddie (Ewan Donald) kidnap company rep Frank (Barrie Hunter) in a human heist gone wrong. Bissett’s direction draws out the musicality of the Fife vernacular. The pacing is superb and she has tightened the flow of the play by excising a handful slightly dated exchanges. Eddie’s wit might be obvious, but Donald gives him a dead-behind-the-eyes sense of danger too. There is a levity and lightness to the comedy of the opening banter between Eddie and Ross Baxter’s young student turned security guard, Tom. When the heist goes wrong the comedy continues to leaven the brutality, but also adds tension as the approaching mayhem becomes clear. Emily James’s realistic set gives Bissett space for a couple excellent visual gags, while grounding the production in the mundanity of working life in the supply room of a Dunfermline factory. Niroshini Thambar’s sound design both enhances the realism and underscores the tension. The real revelation of Bissett’s production, however, is her depiction of Eddie’s violence as both a reflection of where we are now and a warning of where we could so easily be heading.

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Across The Arts 22 Oct 2018 Joy Watters

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Director Cora Bissett hits the stage running with this stunning revival of playwright Gregory Burke’s first work. It grabs the audience by the throat for the next 90 minutes, alternating humour and horror in its examination of the effect on the individual of the changing face of politics. Burke’s award-winning play was first staged in 2001 and still resonates loudly today. Set in his native Fife, describing the decaying hotbed of socialism, it shows a ham-fisted attempt by two factory workers to take direct action on capitalism. An outstanding cast of four immerse themselves in the action in Bissett’s gripping production. The two workers plan to kidnap a boss who they think is visiting from Japan, but the battered hostage is a local who has himself experienced the erosion of socialism. Factory worker Eddie is a self-taught dictator with a love for violence. He claims political purpose for it by executing the kidnap. Ewan Donald frighteningly realises the character, from arrogant stance to the cruel verbal justification of his brutality in an ever taut performance His accomplice, disillusioned Gary (Michael Moreland) struggles to accept the changing order of politics and find his place in society. Moreland perfectly captures that sense of loss and Gary’s inability to form personal relationships. The kidnap goes awry when young student/security officer Tom (Ross Baxter, bringing an engaging innocence to the role) intervenes to help boss Frank, but his barely formed political views and attempts to avert catastrophe crushed. Barrie Hunter’s Frank is outstanding, a tired middle-aged man reflecting on what capitalism has brought him, talking to keep alive, sharing experiences with his captors. Gagarin Way is a cracking piece of theatre, provocative, black, hilarious, posing a host of political questions in its progress.

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Mumble Theatre 22 Oct 2018 Mark Mackenzie

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A bungled kidnapping leads by way of a crisis of belief to a violent climax. Curtains up on a warehouse loading depot late at night and an odd couple are debating the pros and cons of French existentialism, Jean Genet and criminality as a career choice. With some of the bluest but funniest dialogue that could be straight out of an Irvine Welsh, Gregory Burke’s one act play at the Dundee Rep delivers a black comedy that just gets darker and deeper as it gets funnier. Tom, the callow young security guard, played by Ross Baxter, is fresh from university and certain that he’s bound for a career in finance (he’s applied for five jobs so he’s sure to get one of them). He thinks he’s facilitating a little bit of industrial theft organised by his ne’erdo-well companion – some computer chips going out the back door sans paperwork. Baxter’s innocent stooge is nicely played and endearing, with some first class comic flourishes. You get the feeling that, as Eddie says, he’ll be doing the same job in twenty years time. His companion Eddie, however, is up to something far more unsavoury. Slowly it becomes clear that Eddie really is a bit of a bad lad. Have a strong stomach as the laughs lead to a triumphantly bloody climax. Set in post-industrial Silicon Glen of the nineties, an industry that grew in the wastelands left behind by the dismantling of mining and heavy industry in the central belt of Scotland, Burke’s superb play takes on big issues about belief, masculinity and what’s left to guide us when ideologies fail. When Eddie’s friend Gary, played by Michael Moreland, appears and the true reason for the evening’s preparations unfolds, the real comic horror begins. Gary, the anarchist-come-socialist-come-revolutionary wants to make a show-killing of a Japanese tech boss, to spark an uprising of the electroproles in silicon Glen. If he provides the body, Eddie will provide the violence. However, he bungles the kidnapping, and instead of an unconscious Japanese salary man they might have to kill what looks like an American, or a Belgian, or perhaps he’s Flemish. It’s hard to tell the nationality of a blackjacked stiff. Never mind, a killing is a killing. Of course, the problem with violence is that it’s a difficult beast to control. Once you let the dog off the leash it has a nasty habit of biting back. Ewan Duncan is masterful as Eddie, inhabiting violence in every line of speech and gesture, sneering at his companions and the values they stand by. At one point he jumps onto the loading bay, shadow sparring with his weapon of choice – a flick knife. He’s silhouetted against the roller doors by the stage lights, and his shadow is that of a rebel without a cause, a latter-day James Dean. Duncan’s viciously comic dog in the manger is a delight if you love a bit of uber-violence, with a Scots twang. There is a great deal of food for thought inside this fast-paced, funny and thrilling offering from Dundee Rep. Don’t miss this one.

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The Times 23 Oct 2018 Allan Radcliffe

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It feels misleading to refer to this new production of Gagarin Way as a “revival” — as though the director Cora Bissett and her cast had somehow breathed life back into a corpse. Gregory Burke’s black comedy, which was plucked out of the slush pile at the Traverse Theatre and went on to stun audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, has thrived on stages around the world pretty much nonstop since its premiere in 2001. While a couple of exchanges in the script date the play (including withering mention of the crater that was the Scottish parliament building for much of the early Noughties), in Bissett’s hands Burke’s depiction of a bungled heist that sparks a four-pronged political debate is as fresh as ever. The biggest compliment that can be paid to her taut production for the Dundee Rep Ensemble is that the quartet of actors give performances of such detail, wit and force that their characters come across as real people rather than representatives of a particular point of view. Ewan Donald is horribly believable as the sociopathic Eddie, who appears to go along with his sidekick Gary’s woolly plan to smash the system by kidnapping a visiting troubleshooter at a Fife computer factory, only to reveal his murderous intent. Donald not only has a rare facility for the complicated rhythms of Burke’s dialogue, he also creates a portrait of jittery psychosis in which all the tics and mannerisms belong to the character rather than the actor. His opening exchange with Tom (Ross Baxter), the politics graduate turned security guard who facilitates what he believes to be a robbery, is a fascinating depiction of mushy liberalism repeatedly running aground against spiky certitude. Michael Moreland, who played Tom in the original production, is every inch the two-bit revolutionary in greatcoat and workers’ boots as Gary, steeped in the one-time radicalism of the Fife collieries and with naive notions of sticking it to the man. That the man turns out to be Frank (Barrie Hunter), an unprepossessing middle manager who is himself scunnered with hyper-capitalism, is but one of the plot’s many cruel ironies. Bissett and her cast skilfully navigate the play’s mix of broad humour and darker, gorier elements (at one point the stage literally drips blood). The simplicity of the set and elegant lighting design (created by, respectively, Emily James and Katharine Williams) contrast nicely with the vivid writing and colourful performances, and if Burke’s ending has always seemed on the abrupt side, the play’s lack of catharsis is perfectly in tune with the essential bleakness of the playwright’s vision.

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Dundee University Review of the Arts 26 Oct 2018 Kai Durkin

Dundee Rep Theatre’s latest production is Gagarin Way (2001), Gregory Burke’s debut play. Set in Fife and telling the story of two downtrodden factory workers who kidnap a member of senior management as a form of protest, and the security guard who becomes entangled in their scheme, the play expertly walks the knife’s edge between dark comedy and political thriller. The set of Gagarin Way is impressive: an authentically grimy factory floor on two levels, connected by a rolling conveyor. At the back is the looming loading bay door, and the moment when it rolls up to reveal the van reversing onstage is every bit as theatrical as promised by Cora Bisset, the play’s director, in an interview with me. We are greeted with the image of the shadowy figure of Gary (Michael Moreland) standing in the back of the van over an unconscious body, demonically backlit with red light, a reference perhaps to Gary’s Communist beliefs. This introduction establishes Gary as a powerful figure, a power that is gradually lost as the play progresses. The set’s different levels help visualise his loss of authority. As Gary loses control of the situation, he goes from standing in the van, above the stage, to sitting sobbing on the ground, on the stage’s lowest tier. His downward personal journey could also be said to reflect the historical trajectory of other failed Socialist uprisings and the gradual disenfranchisement of individual factory workers. On one level, the characters represent clashing ideologies. Gary is the hardened socialist, his hope for change turned into desperation; contrasting him is Frank (Barrie Hunter), the embittered capitalist. University-educated Tom (Ross Baxter) is the optimistic liberal youth, seeking compromise. His opposite number might be Eddie (Ewan Donald), who represents the epitome of the demonised working class: a volatile track suited man, switchblade in pocket. The tenuous connection between them all is Fife, and frequent references to Fife’s history and geography helps keep the play’s extreme events grounded. The failed attempts of certain characters to bond over this connection – for example when all four men commemorate their relatives who took part in the miner’s strikes – and so avert the downwards spiral might hint at a wider struggle for men to form bonds under the weight of toxic masculinity, which glorifies brutality and demonises emotional openness. The writing and performances give the characters depth, ensuring they are more than political strawmen. Focusing on the ways in which ideologies play into characters’ relationships with one another brings the play’s political themes to the forefront of the story in a way that feels natural, rather than obtuse or didactic. For example, the play opens with Eddie delivering a sarcastic but impassioned lecture to Tom on French philosophy. When Tom is impressed, Eddie quips “Aye, well it’s amazing what you can do with a library card”. Eddie’s disdain for both Tom and academia is evident, but he also reveals a more intellectual side, addressing class and academic gatekeeping. Gagarin Way contains marvellous dark humour. The dialogue is fast-paced and witty. There is also entertaining physical comedy like Frank’s trussed up body sliding down the rolling conveyor. The comedy balances the story’s darker moments to play with audience expectations and so heighten the on-stage tension. Without giving too much away, one of the play’s best moments builds pressure and conflict to an almost unbearable degree, only for the climax to be hilariously subverted. The night I was attending, the entire audience erupted with laughter at this. But when a character pulled a knife, the room instantly returned to terrified silence. Overall, the fantastic acting, inspired set design and brilliant balance of comedy and tension makes this a very entertaining production. More than that, the play’s humour and the recognisable frustrations of its characters, prove that politics, class and masculinity are still as relevant today.

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The Sunday Herald 28 Oct 2018 Mark Brown

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Gagarin Way, Gregory Burke’s dark comedy about globalisation, which premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2001, is one of the best Scottish plays of the new millennium. Set in a storeroom in a factory in Fife, the drama finds Eddie (a self-confessed violent psychopath) and Tom (a hapless, young security guard) taking delivery of a kidnapped executive of the multinational company for which they work. The man doing the delivering is Gary (a former Communist who has turned to anarcho-syndicalist terrorism). In the premiere production, the loquacious and erudite thug Eddie was played memorably by Michael Nardone (who is currently performing the eponymous lead in the National Theatre’s touring production of Macbeth). Here the role is taken on by the impressive Ewan Donald, who plays the part with the necessary casual menace (even if he passes too quickly over Burke’s excellent gag about Jean-Paul Sartre being comprehensively burgled by his friend Jean Genet). Director Cora Bissett’s production (which is designed with appropriate banality by Emily James) succeeds in capturing both the political truth and the gloriously ludicrous comedy of the play. Gary (performed brilliantly by Michael Moreland, who played the role of Tom in the 2001 premiere) is the embodiment of the anger of workers who resent their bosses, but are frustrated by (in 2001 as today) the historically low level of industrial action. Strutting about in a greatcoat (which, he supposes, makes him look like one of his Russian anarchist heroes), Moreland’s Gary is, as Burke surely intended, more like Citizen Smith with a death wish than Bakunin. Ross Baxter’s Tom is deliciously green and imprudent, while Barrie Hunter achieves a perfect balance between fear, dignity and confessional honesty as Frank, the boss who is emphatically not from Tokyo or Los Angeles.

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The Wee Review 31 Oct 2018 Claire Wood

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There is a certain strand of wistful hopelessness particular to small Scottish towns that is perfectly captured by Gregory Burke’s classic thriller, Gagarin Way. The second play in Artistic Director’s Andrew Panton’s new season at Dundee Rep, this presents a very different slice of Scottish life to the charmingly evocative The Yellow On The Broom. Gary and Eddie are disillusioned factory workers in Fife, determined to seek redress for perceived exploitation at the hands of the company’s distant management. Hoping to make a spectacular statement about their right to a fairer deal, they kidnap a visiting manager – only to discover that Frank is as far from being a smug, international fat cat as they are. The play premiered at the Traverse in July 2001, become a Fringe hit and has since popped up in productions across the world. Lauded for whip quick dialogue, for presenting a side of Scottish life scarcely seen on stage at the time and for the scope of its political and philosophical exploration, it’s a script that almost defies categorisation. The comedy is black as a moonless night, it’s a taut psychological thriller, it’s a sharp commentary on the failure of a political system to create meaning and it’s a study of friendship, endurance and what passes for resilience when the local economy’s in ruins. Even though the soundscape before the play begins locates you neatly in internet dial up days, this production is just as topical today. Director Cora Bissett’s production is tense, shocking and kind all at once. It would be easy to turn these characters into caricatures but this cast turn in nuanced and finely tuned performances. Ewan Donald’s Eddie is a riveting firecracker. High on substances or on life, he veers between what seems like compassion and a shockingly shameless violence. He’s a man who has been let down by life and despite all that’s gone before, when he finally appeals to Gary – who else can he rely on? It’s a touchingly plaintive plea. Michael Moreland as Gary bursts onto the stage with the swagger of a man who has all the answers – but Frank’s questions shake the foundations of his passionately declaimed politics, leaving him racked with self-doubt. Barrie Hunter’s Frank is anything but a corporate fat cat. He hails from Leven, not some far flung land, and his weary catalogue of personal calamity is the first jenga block snatched out of Eddie and Gary’s teetering tower of intention. And Ross Baxter’s Tom is a fantastic counterpart to Burke’s three cynics. A security guard who ends up embroiled in the antics, he brings a lovely wide-eyed innocence to the story. He’s studied the politics and the philosophy of disillusionment that has led Eddie to his breaking point; however, he’s already had his share of disappointment and determines to flee the meagre opportunities available in his homeland. This is a stylish production with just enough of a soundscape (produced by Niroshini Thambar) to crank up the tension. Emily James’ set is industrially fit for purpose with lovely use made of the conveyor belt. The lighting (Katherine Williams) only occasionally strays from stark realism to great effect. And EmmaClaire Brightlyn serves up some cracking action sequences. This 17-year-old play about big dreams and small town hopelessness is brilliantly pertinent in this climate of economic uncertainty and blundering politics. It’s a bold choice from Dundee Rep that left some of its audience tutting at the plethora of c*&ts scattered liberally throughout the script. But if you’re ok with a bit (or a lot, rather) of swearing, it’s a funny from the get go, pointed, punchy polemic. DUNDEE REP

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For further information about our Education projects and resources, please contact Heather Cassidy (Education and Pathways Associate) on 01382 342660 or email hcassidy@dundeereptheatre.co.uk

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