IT’S been almost 20 years coming to fruition but author James Robertson believes the wait for a theatrical production of one of his best-selling novels is well worth it.
Tickets are already selling fast for the touring show of The Testament Of Gideon Mack and Robertson thinks audiences won’t be disappointed by Dogstar Theatre’s version of the book.
“I’m delighted it’s happening and delighted that it’s Dogstar and Matthew Zajac behind it because I really trust what he does,” Robertson told the Sunday National.
Zajac, Dogstar’s artistic director, and Robertson first discussed turning the book into a play shortly after the novel came out in 2006.
“He wanted to do it with a reasonably large cast but if you are going to put on something like this you need some serious funding,” said Robertson. “He struggled for a while to get any traction but, I think something like 12 years ago, Eden Court in Inverness commissioned him to write a script which I thought was very good.”
However several attempts at finding more funding were rejected in the next few years.
“Then he had one last shot and this time Creative Scotland said yes and suddenly we were all systems go.”
Robertson, who attended a read-through with the eight-strong cast last week, said he was very happy with the result.
“I am really pleased with Matthew’s script,” he said. “He has retained the essence of the book and the story but he has moved it into a new dimension and that’s as it should be.”
Robertson thinks tickets are selling well because of Dogstar’s reputation and also because so many people read the book when it was published in 2006, although he admits he was initially surprised by its popularity.
“I thought a story about a non-believing Church of Scotland minister who falls into a river, wakes up in a cave and meets the devil was not going to attract a lot of attention but it did really well.”
The book was long-listed for the Booker Prize and then really took off when it was selected by the Richard and Judy Book Club. It’s a story about grief and faith but there is humour too.
Said Robertson: “I wanted to look at what happens to a society and culture where change happens very rapidly. Scotland has gone from an ostensibly quite religious country to an incredibly secular country in a very short space of time.
“There have been major changes even since I wrote the book, with, for example, a complete change in attitude towards people’s sexuality and gay marriage. That would have been unthinkable in the 1960s and 1970s and yet look at where we are. I thought this shift in the role of religion in society was worth exploring and I think people do find that interesting. Why did it change and what is the impact on the rest of our lives?
“Another aspect of the story looks at why people look for some kind of meaning or spirituality in their lives if organised religion has lost so much of its power and influence.”
Like many people of his generation in Scotland, Robertson grew up with the church and the strong community it provided and still feels its moral influence, though he lost his faith as a teenager.
“I think you still live in the shadow of what you grew up in but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing,” said Robertson.
“If you have any kind of moral compass it needs to have come from somewhere and for me, it came from the Christianity I grew up in, although I don’t believe in it anymore. The difference between good and evil and the way we assess what is moral or unacceptable behaviour – those kinds of questions I think are still incredibly relevant today, even if we have lost some of the religious context in which we used to consider them.
“Even people who say they are atheists need something that gives them some sort of spiritual uplift or sense of existential meaning and if it doesn’t come from religious faith it has to come from something else like the environment and nature and I would probably say that is where I get it from now.”
On balance, he believes Scotland’s more secular modern society is an improvement but that some positive aspects of the past have been lost.
“Going to church on a Sunday took you out of your ordinary everyday life and with the singing, the organ playing and a sermon it was almost like going to the theatre,” said Robertson. “You were in a building that was like no other building you were in any other day of the week and it was also a day that was different from every other day.
“I wasn’t allowed to go out on my bike or round to see my friends because it was accepted that Sunday was a quiet day even if you didn’t go to church.
“Nobody played golf, there were no football matches or other sporting events on a Sunday, no shops open and it is true that even the swings in the playpark were chained up. All of that has gone and while I think that is good and that people shouldn’t be restrained and restricted in that way, it does mean that Sunday is now just like any other day.
“Whatever the gains are, there is always a loss and I think that needs to be thought about.”
While that all sounds serious, there is plenty of humour in the book and in the play.
“Now perhaps we can laugh at how we did sometimes take religion and ourselves a bit too seriously. If people choose to go and see the play expecting it to be deeply religious then they will get a surprise because it is quite critical of religion and some of its negative aspects,” said Robertson.
“On the other hand if they go expecting a play that just slags religion off then they will be surprised too because the story doesn’t take a fixed position on this and that is the dilemma that faces Gideon Mack. He’s a hypocrite, after all.
“Although he is an ordained minister he is agnostic, and is not sure if you can be a good man without having religion. He has tried to be a minister who looks after his flock in a good way but he doesn’t believe in the thing he is supposed to believe in and when this difficult balancing act starts to go wrong, that is when he gets into big trouble.”
Robertson warns that there is “quite a lot of sex and swearing” so those seeing the play should go with an open mind.
“There is nothing in the play that is not there for a reason,” he said. “I would also say that even if you have not read the book, you will enjoy the play but of course I hope that once people have seen the play, they will want to explore it a bit further with the book.
“It’s a very different experience but the same themes are in both.”
The Testament Of Gideon Mack will open at Eden Theatre, Inverness, on February 13 before travelling to theatres in Ayr, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Giffnock, Greenock, Kirkcaldy, St. Andrews, Stirling and Stornoway.
