The title of this play The Tailor of Inverness seems to root us in Scotland, Inverness specifically, but in fact the tale told by this tailor is one where geography seems to have few certain borders. It serves not only to highlight the longing for personal reunification but also shows how borders, places and memories shift and reshape. They shift to contain or free us, to protect us or to avenge us and in seeking sanctuary we find that we are in fact rootless. Our identities are fused again and the stories which we use to console ourselves, like the borders shift and the past reshapes our present.
Written and performed by Mathew Zajac with great commitment and flair he draws us into a narrative that takes us on a journey of self-discovery through a panoply of characters who review the troubled history of Poland. Directed by Ben Harrison with imagination and creativity as it allowed a single actor to populate the stage with a range of characters and incidents with pace, while at the same time giving us time to process and unravel the journey of discovery that weaved its way though time and lands forgot.
Zajac’s story of a boy growing up on a farm in Galicia, then in Poland, now in the Ukraine and who eventually becomes a tailor in Inverness is a true story and recounting it takes us across most of the 20th century, navigating us through a Russian invasion, Hitler’s invasion, Ukraine and Polish conflicts, civil unrest, the virtual eradication of Polish culture and extermination of Poland’s Jewish population with a death toll that tops 6 million. Through the unrest conscription from changing armies and governments helps weave a complex journey for the young tailor-to-be. As the man, who eventually settles successfully in Scotland, takes sufficient comfort from his yearly armistice commemoration day but in Zajac’s pursuit for the truth of the man we wonder, is our tailor the man he claims to be?
Zajac’s performance is delivered with great energy, physically expressive and always clear as he navigates the fact and the fiction of the man. He explores the emotional roller coaster with skill and a sensitivity that draws us in to this complex tale of woe and wonder that leads to reconciliation and celebration. Great credit must be given to designers Kai Fisher (lighting design) and Ali Maclaurin (designer of set and costumes). The backdrop of pressed-flat, creamy clothes punctuated with hanging blue-trimmed dress of a child not only linked us emotionally but gave cohesion to the narrative and resting against he cartography it allowed us to visually grasp the enormity of the journey to freedom, especially with the use of overhead projection, mapping the circuitous route to freedom in Inverness. Although we do wonder if we are ever free of our past.
Supporting the narrative was a live soundscape of violin music, performed by Jonny Hardie that created a bedrock of emotion and atmosphere throughout. Rather like our shifting land borders, so too the music, with its evocation of Scottish laments and Polish folk framed the story. As the music whooshed, with its changes of rhythm that leapt and bounded across notes, it was both lively and sad – just like the The Tailor of Inverness.
Runs at the Finborough Theatre until June 8th.
CREATIVE TEAM
Directed by Ben Harrison
Written & Performed by Mathew Zajac
Musicians – Jonny Hardie, Amy Geddes, Magdelana Kaleta
Set& Costumes Designed by Ali Maclaurin
Lighting Designed by Kai Fischer
Sound Design by Timothy Brinkhurst
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