Keepers of The Light Festival Theatre Studio September 8th 2023 Review
Keepers of The Light is at the Festival Theatre Studio for three performances only (Friday 08 and Sat 10 Sept) and if, like me, the disappearance of the three lighthouse keepers from their post on the Flannan Isles lighthouse, west of the Outer Hebrides in December 1900 is part of your school-days’ stories then this show could be of interest to you. If you don’t know this story at all then this is the chance to just sit back and enjoy a well written, directed and performed work of theatre that re-looks at this classic tale of mystery through fresh eyes and different perspectives.
If you do remember this story from your school days though, the chances are that it is through the poetry of Wilfred Wilson Gibson and his lengthy 1912 poem “Flannan Isle”. For some reason the first verse seems forever imprinted upon our memories and has become in some strange way part of our own “false memory” and every one of us probably thinks that they remember what really happened that night, but in a slightly different way. As Wilfred Wilson Gibson tells us
“Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steered under the lee, we caught
No glimmer through the night."
Keepers of the Light is really two stories in one, performed by the same actors taking the dual roles of that original lighthouse crew of 1899/1900 cut off from relief and supply ships by a storm that raged it seemed forever, and a modern day maintenance crew brought onto the island by helicopter to repair the now fully automated lighthouse systems.
Bringing the three lighthouse keepers/maintenance crew to life are Rhys Anderson (Donald & Mac), Fraser Sivewright (Tam & Alec) and Garry Stewart (Jim & Davie). Everyone on stage here is a natural story teller, and we need that ability in a tightly focused story like this that takes place in only one scene setting, and writer and director Izzy Gray obviously knows that keeping scenes and settings simple usually works best in a small theatre space setting like this. Izzy Gray is, however, a skilled enough writer to also let the script allow us, the audience, to imagine for ourselves what conditions on the isle are like outside of this small one room setting on stage.
Writer and Director Izzy Gray has a family history connection with real lighthouse keepers and growing up listening to these stories has given her an insight into an enclosed world that few outsiders can really comprehend. With this script we get some real sense of the type of person that it took to be a lighthouse keeper and the problems that can arise when even an experienced crew have no way to get away from each other, no real privacy and the never ending night-time noise of the light-house machinery itself. Add into this superstitions, folk-lore, personality clashes, and we all start to get some idea of how volatile life can get in such a small space.
There is also a nice tie-in here to writer Robert Louis Stevenson’s family connections to lighthouses and also his family connections to one man in this very story with his famous story “The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde” playing an important part in this story in more ways than one.
Using the same actors to play different crews in two time frames can always bring with it problems of clear identification of exactly where you are in the story, but for the most part that is dealt with here by small costume, lighting and sound changes, but there are a few moments when the time-lines get a little bit blurred, so you do have to pay attention to the story on stage. There are some differences in the characters themselves too and that of course helps.
Keepers of the Light is simply a well packaged work for a small theatre space that takes into account official records and more fanciful possibilities of what really happened on Flannan Isles lighthouse that fateful night. It offers no answers and raises many more questions too.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
If you do remember this story from your school days though, the chances are that it is through the poetry of Wilfred Wilson Gibson and his lengthy 1912 poem “Flannan Isle”. For some reason the first verse seems forever imprinted upon our memories and has become in some strange way part of our own “false memory” and every one of us probably thinks that they remember what really happened that night, but in a slightly different way. As Wilfred Wilson Gibson tells us
“Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steered under the lee, we caught
No glimmer through the night."
Keepers of the Light is really two stories in one, performed by the same actors taking the dual roles of that original lighthouse crew of 1899/1900 cut off from relief and supply ships by a storm that raged it seemed forever, and a modern day maintenance crew brought onto the island by helicopter to repair the now fully automated lighthouse systems.
Bringing the three lighthouse keepers/maintenance crew to life are Rhys Anderson (Donald & Mac), Fraser Sivewright (Tam & Alec) and Garry Stewart (Jim & Davie). Everyone on stage here is a natural story teller, and we need that ability in a tightly focused story like this that takes place in only one scene setting, and writer and director Izzy Gray obviously knows that keeping scenes and settings simple usually works best in a small theatre space setting like this. Izzy Gray is, however, a skilled enough writer to also let the script allow us, the audience, to imagine for ourselves what conditions on the isle are like outside of this small one room setting on stage.
Writer and Director Izzy Gray has a family history connection with real lighthouse keepers and growing up listening to these stories has given her an insight into an enclosed world that few outsiders can really comprehend. With this script we get some real sense of the type of person that it took to be a lighthouse keeper and the problems that can arise when even an experienced crew have no way to get away from each other, no real privacy and the never ending night-time noise of the light-house machinery itself. Add into this superstitions, folk-lore, personality clashes, and we all start to get some idea of how volatile life can get in such a small space.
There is also a nice tie-in here to writer Robert Louis Stevenson’s family connections to lighthouses and also his family connections to one man in this very story with his famous story “The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde” playing an important part in this story in more ways than one.
Using the same actors to play different crews in two time frames can always bring with it problems of clear identification of exactly where you are in the story, but for the most part that is dealt with here by small costume, lighting and sound changes, but there are a few moments when the time-lines get a little bit blurred, so you do have to pay attention to the story on stage. There are some differences in the characters themselves too and that of course helps.
Keepers of the Light is simply a well packaged work for a small theatre space that takes into account official records and more fanciful possibilities of what really happened on Flannan Isles lighthouse that fateful night. It offers no answers and raises many more questions too.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com