The outlying islands off the Scottish coast, in both the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, are those which do not make up part of larger groups. They have names like Sula Sgeir and Innis Mhor and hardly any support a human population. They are isolated and desolate. They make excellent locations for plays because loneliness is a way of life, and loneliness leads people to do strange things.
"Outlying Islands," a play by Scottish playwright David Greig, uses the isolation as a handy device, earning an assist for some of his characters' peculiarities, whether they're island residents like Mr. Kirk (Jerry Vogel) and his niece, Ellen (Elizabeth Berkenmeier), or visitors like Robert (Jason Cannon) and John (Scott McMaster) taking a census of puffins and plovers and other island-hopping birds like grey wagtails and great tits. It's 1939, war is on the horizon, and there is speculation, over glasses of Scotch whisky, that the census has something to do with anthrax or other contagious diseases. It opened Friday at the Kranzberg Arts Center, a production of the Upstream Theater Company, and will run through April 25, a play with something to say and questions to pose, but which displays time-line problems and herky-jerky staging by Philip Boehm.
Robert and John are rather naive; Robert waves his sexual experiences like a red flag at the virginal John and uses his bird-counting duties and his journal-keeping as excuses to let John do most of the work. Kirk has the lease to the island, drinks his Scotch despite claiming to have some sort of illness that apparently keeps him from drinking unless he talks about it. He has rented a one-time chapel of some sort to the visitors, and he keeps up a verbal rant against pagans, who supposedly used it, with all the ferocity of Glenn Beck, all the while adding and padding his bill to the government as if he were a defense contractor. Ellen does the cooking, her specialty being puffin which Robert describes as tasting like "chicken cooked in axle grease."
As the Scotch helps the characters relax, a tragedy occurs, and bird-watching turns into Ellen-chasing. Her ultimate decision sparks another tragedy, and Greig then hustles everything to a speedy conclusion. A constant problem is lack of a time frame. Costumes are no help; lots of blankets are always in use. John shows up in shorts for one scene; Ellen always wears a gorgeous, but huge yellow scarf. There is some early discussion about how long John and Robert will be on the island, but nothing feels fixed. Why is there no contact with the mainland? This is 1939, not the middle ages. Ellen is fond of movies, but if she has not been off the island in a while (how long?), where does she see them? DVDs have not yet been invented. In terms of acting, I found Vogel and McMaster solid. Bekenmeier was too hard to understand too often. Cannon was too far over the top from time to time.
Boehm picks unusual plays for Upstream; all are different and most are fascinating. "Outlying Islands" is just different.
"Outlying Islands," a production of Upstream Theater, at the Kranzberg Arts Center, Olive Street at Grand Boulevard, through April 25
–Joe