Stories of the Sea on Stage

*some of the words in Aberdeen-related posts will feature words, in addition to ship names, in italics. These words are part of the dialect of Scots spoken in the North East of Scotland, Doric. 

I Find The Coolest Things Just By Aimlessly Walking

I have to admit. I did not go to Aberdeen expecting to attend any sort of stage performance. It took a walk down Rosemount Viaduct to a couple of charity shops to be—pretty quickly—convinced that taking in at least one play at His Majesty’s Theatre//Aberdeen Performing Arts would certainly be on my schedule. What caught my eye was a poster for the debut full-length play by Morna Young, Lost at Sea. Originally written in 2012 (performed for the first time this year during country-wide tour of Scotland) and composed of oral histories collected by the author from Moray fisherman infused with fictional plot lines—Lost at Sea tells the story of a young journalist, Shona, returning to her hometown fishing village to understand her fisherman father’s death and dealing with the complicated nature of dredging up painful memories, and discovering new, but still unhappy, information. 

The poster outside His Majesty’s Theatre that caught my eye while out bargain hunting.

Upon a quick Google search about the author, one easily sees where this play could be defined—at the least—a semi-autobiographical work; Young’s father was a fisherman who, in 1989, was aboard a fishing vessel working off the Moray coast when he fell overboard and was lost to the currents of the sea. Her curiosity about her father, who he was and how he died, led to the idea of returning her native fishing village in Moray to interview locals about her father and about working on the water. This pretty much sold me on the idea of attending a show out of curiosity. What completely sold me on the play—so much I decided to blog about it—was not only the really well-done production, but just how much coastal life ways in the North East of Scotland were the driving influence behind the play. 

In her blog post dated 29 April, “Writing Lost at Sea,” Young explains “that the family story at the centre is not autobiographical…my dad’s death isn’t an isolated event.” By interweaving real histories from real fisherman with a fictional plot line, Young was able to depict how one may grieve or try to come to terms with the death of anyone to whom they were close. For it to be set at sea was a natural choice as the villages along the coasts of Scotland were long dependent on the fisheries as a source of income, although now, fishing only accounts for just over 2% of Moray’s economy. In the post, Young goes on to say, “It is the story of many people who experienced a way of life that remains hidden to most. This is a part of Scotland’s history and, really, our present too.” 

Write About What You Know

This is not the first time Young has used the coastal life ways of her hometown in theatre. In a 14 minute piece, She of the Sea, (performed in Aberdeen 26 September 2017 as part of a UK-wide program, Come to Where I’m From) she defines her existence as one linked to the water, her home’s peninsular geography and relationship with the fisheries and, that she “is from” the accident that killed her father. In the closing of She of the Sea, Young says “we’re forever bound by the salt in our blood.” That theme is a central theme of Lost at Sea.

Lost at Sea beautifully presents a way of life that is not-so-often represented on stage, but one on which the world inevitably depends. The play itself was wonderfully subtle and I loved the minimal and succinct stage design that focused on the sounds and costumes that most accurately portrayed life in coastal communities. Young’s use of fishermen’s narratives also give audiences who have experienced going to sea, for one reason or another, something to relate to and draw them into the rest of the play; for me, one of the quotes brought a smile to my face because I could vaguely relate to one description of ship-board life:

Voice 1: “I remember this one time the crew were knackered - the deck was full of fish and well, ye canna leave the fish out for too long on the deck. So I says, look guys, go awa tae your beds for four hours and I’ll keep watch. So I waited two overs then I went down and shifted all the clocks forward. And then I shouted them up - right loons! So aabody gets oot their beds like spring lambs thinkin they’ve had four hours sleep. They only had two! Some folk did probably say:”

Voice 4: “You course bastard!” (77)

I think anyone who has been assigned to a 4 hour watch schedule that didn’t necessarily pan out would physically feel the sentiment voiced by Voice 4—I did, and that’s what so great about the play—it uses descriptions anyone that has been on the water can relate to (but in a dialect really only the North East of Scotland can understand). The play is a part of the growing list of works that use the Doric dialect as the principal language in print and on screen. Though Doric is already a dialect of Scots, the North East of Scotland is a large area, and thus regional variations of Doric exist. Both are used in the play, according to the notes included in the published book version. Overall, the play is easy to understand, but when I showed the play’s text to my mum and some friends, I just got a weird look. Maybe my genome is somehow imbued with the ability to make sense of some Doric. Who knows.

The play drives home the reality of living by the water by using a chorus that, in a very Scottish way, imparts the idea that living a life by and on the water is something reminiscent of a Greek tragedy but one so encoded into one’s existence that it makes sense to keep forging a relationship with the sea. Whereas other maritime-themed stage productions (e.g. The Last Ship) seemingly try to recreate and romanticize a by-gone time; Lost at Sea deftly contrasts the decline of Moray’s fisheries with the onslaught of North Sea oil, and an increase of land-based jobs, as a sub-plot in a way that modernizes the experience of declining maritime industries and creates a contemporary meditation on what it means for those to choose to remain along the coast and their adaptability//resiliency. The play ends with the recitation of 106 or so Moray fishermen, “bound by the salt in their blood,” aged 17 to 62 who, between 1970-2006, left land and never returned.

A Night at the Theatre

Waiting for doors to open with a wee dram of Famous Grouse at the in-house pub.

For the last show in Aberdeen I found a seat in Row B (Stalls). Seat 11 put me pretty much stage center. I think Row B may have been a bit to close but I bought my ticket the day of so I obviously didn’t bother too much with the details. My ticket cost £25.50 and worth every penny. I also had a whisky at the in-house pub and bought a copy of the play published by Oberon Books. I think total for that night, I may have spent £40-45 on the whole night. The last play I had seen in the UK was at the Old Vic, so the price of my night out in Aberdeen struck me as very reasonable. I am so so glad I acted on a whim.