Review: THE STRAW CHAIR, Finborough Theatre

In the early 1700s, far, far out in the wild North Atlantic, a community hover on the edge of paganism and Christianity, their only connection to the mainland the trading boats, the Laird's man ('The Steward') and a missionary sent from Edinburgh, Aneas Seaton. He brings his new bride, Isabel, who barely speaks Gaelic and misses her life at home, but finds another woman from the capital, the brazen, boozy, boorish Rachel, whose servant, Oona, seems more akin to a jailer. Rachel's story of abduction and exile appears to be the ramblings of a mad woman, but Isabel, no fool despite her tender years, begins to believe her and see parallels with her own fate.

Sue Glover's play is a typical find for this most interesting of theatres, giving it an English premiere 34 years on from its first staging in Edinburgh. If it needed it - and it doesn't - lockdown has added another layer of universality to a tale timeless in its themes and dramas.

As with The Wicker Man (the film with which the play shares some parallels, even in its title) The Straw Chair needs a strong sense of place, which it gets largely from Anna Short's sound design, all gulls and wind. If that's the big Hebridean sky and towering cliffs, director, Polly Creed, captures Isabel's claustrophobia, the product of the constant surveillance a 'foreigner' invites in such a society. No wonder she longs to join the annual all-women week-long trip from Hirta Island to Boreray Island.

Plays like this depend on their leads creating real people, no matter how distant they may be from today. Rori Hawthorn (Isabel) and Siobhan Redmond (Rachel) are perfectly matched, circling each other with suspicion, fascination and, eventually, respect. Roland Bathes once wrote about haircuts in films and Hawthorn's hair, initially as tightly bound as her frightened personality, finishes the play as tousled red locks, the younger woman having listened to the older about the pleasures of the marital bed, stone though it may be. Redmond pitches her imperious Rachel as unbowed and defiant, determined to end her exile, convincing Isabel of her veracity through the mountain of detail she folds into her incredible tale. These are the real people this strange place needs.

They get good support from Finlay Bain as the uptight missionary who learns the true meaning of love and Jenny Lee who represents a people who like their own ways, but fear The Steward.

There's much to chew on in this play, based on the true story of a woman's banishment. There's isolation and loneliness, there's the strange grip exerted by a distant authority through history and culture and there's the psychological impact that comes of denying a sexual life (and the psychological strength that comes from its embrace).

As more people construct their own Hirtas, partly voluntarily through working from home and meeting others exclusively online and partly involuntarily through the hollowing out of high streets and public transport, Rachel and Isabel gain new lives in Covid times. It may not be a case of their living happily ever after back on their island, but both appear to have made their accommodations with their fates, tellingly only after Rachel's resistance and Isabel's awakening. There's a lesson there.

The Straw Chair is at the Finborough Theatre until 14 May

Photo by Carla Joy Evans

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