Space hub play about to take off in Thurso
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A PLAY about the proposed space hub in north Sutherland is set to be launched next week.
The Fallen Angels of the Moine has been written by George Gunn and will be performed in Thurso on Wednesday at 2pm.
The work by the Caithness writer is being staged in the Merlin Cinema as part of the Environmental Research Institute's 2020 Flow Country Conference.
The actors have rehearsed for just two-and-a-half days and will present the play as a moved reading with script in hand and with basic moves. "It is theatre stripped back to its basic essentials," Gunn explained.
The Fallen Angels of the Moine features Thurso actress Helen Mackay, who plays Cait, a young crofter; Matthew Zajac, who will direct the performance and plays Oliphant, a councillor; and Naomi Stirrat, who takes on the role of a hydrologist, Cianna.
Gunn describes the play as "art meeting science and the environment... poetry and the bog... theatre and time travel... rockets and rhetoric".
He says the spaceport project is "not a done deal" and is keen to encourage the audience to join the cast and him afterwards for a discussion on the issues raised in the play.
Gunn points out that the Moine has been the source of myths and legends throughout history, while supernatural tales provide a rich folklore.
"This is a story about The Kindly Ones – otherworld visitors – who have travelled across the universe and through time and who have chosen to reside beneath the Moine," he said.
"Environmental calamity now threatens their chosen home. Cianna, with the help of Cait, who has extraordinary preternatural gifts, discovers the reality of what has been going on, about the truth behind a nearby rocket launch site or space hub and what the company who are constructing it – and who Cianna is working for – propose for the Moine."
The work reunites Gunn and actor/director Matthew Zajac who was a member of the Grey Coast Theatre Company which undertook innovative theatrical work in Caithness, the wider Highlands and Islands and around Scotland from 1992 until its final award-winning production of Three Thousand Trees at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2014.
The play also marks a return to Caithness of established actress Helen Mackay and Naomi Stirrat, who starred in Dogstar’s acclaimed 2019 touring production of The Stornoway Way, which played to a full house in Reay hall.
"It’s a privilege to work with these three theatre artists and to first show The Fallen Angels of the Moine – albeit in its fresh state – to an audience in Caithness," Gunn said.
"We have a musical, bardic and storytelling culture which this play is part of and taps into. The play may prove controversial to some but we need, at this point in our history, both stimulation and entertainment. I hope people come along and make up their own minds."
