Maintaining "Midsummer's" Frothy Foundation

Isaac Lamb and Cristi Miles

David Greig and Gordon McIntyre's Midsummer (a play with songs) is a good example of theater that manipulates our emotions through empathy with the protagonists, but it's not a great example. If it was a great example, Greig wouldn't have complicated the characters' direct addresses with screenplay jargon.

Midsummer relies heavily on the characters Bob (Isaac Lamb in this production at Third Rail) and Helena (Cristi Miles) telling the story of their amorous adventures directly to the audience. It feels like a pair of charming acquaintances telling you how they met. You're predisposed to relate to the story partly because you want to like your acquaintances and partly because you are thinking about how you met your loved one (or would like to meet your future loved one) while you listen to their story. But the brilliancy of applying this conversational approach to theater is complicated by Bob's frequent use of cinematic idiom that removes the spectators from the immediacy of the story.

Bob and Helena meet in a bar. Bob is there because he's a criminal and he's meeting one of his criminal contacts. Helena is there because she has a troubling secret she needs to forget about. She asks Bob to share her wine with her. He does, and the pair have an inebriated one-night stand. They agree not to see each other again, but fate intervenes and they meet just as Bob has acquired a plastic grocery bag full of pounds. It's not technically his, but with the bank shutting just as he arrives and it being his 35th birthday, why not just spend it? He invites Helena to run around Edinburgh with him, spending the bag of money that technically doesn't belong to him.

It's a very specific story about a specific couple in a specific city. And yet it accesses something universal. It's a happy story about a happy feeling that most of us have had and would like to continue having. The audience's identification with the characters is facilitated by Greig's use of direct address. It's really as if you asked a pair of people you've just made friends with, "How did you two meet?" and they answer with this awesome story about running around Edinburgh with a plastic bag full of money. We live vicariously through them. Who doesn't want a "how did you two meet" story like that? That strength is diluted by the screenplay jargon that serves to alienate the audience rather than inspire empathy.

This is a "dramatic" play (after Brecht), not an "epic" play. It would do Greig well to remember that. That's not to say this play is bad: it's a fantastic date play. Greig is a star playwright in Scotland, and has made a name for himself with socially conscious plays like The Events. Midsummer, however, is not socially conscious and shouldn't be. Attempting Verfremdungseffekt with it only weakens its frothy foundations. It's theater for date night, not theater for social change. If Greig wants to federalize the U.K., then this is not the play. If he wants to placate the bourgeoisie, then this is a nice little play to do it with.