CLONES, suicidal salesmen and the world’s most famous horse are the big winners on the Scottish stage this year, with Dundee Rep’s production of an Arthur Miller classic picking up three gongs at yesterday’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS).
The production scooped Best Ensemble, Best Male Performance for actor Billy Mack and the top prize, the award for Best Production.
Theatre critic and CATS co-convenor Joyce McMillan said the show, directed by Joe Douglas, was a worthy winner.
She said: “Dundee Rep used all the resources of its fine ensemble company to produce a beautiful, memorable and heart-breaking production of Death of a Salesman.
“The Rep used superb design and sound to set one of the 20th century’s greatest plays in its full historical context, while always remaining fully focused on the profound and enduring human tragedy at the heart of the story.”
Best Female Performance Award went to Nicole Cooper for her Coriolanus, performed as part of the Bard in the Botanics season of Shakespeare plays in the famous gardens in Glasgow’s West End.
Herald theatre critic Neil Cooper paid tribute to Cooper: “As Coriolanus in Bard in the Botanics’ stripped-back production of Shakespeare’s war-time classic, Nicole Cooper took on a role usually associated with unhinged machismo, and stomped her way through the Kibble Palace with a whirlwind-like ferocity.
“This not only gave the play a fresh edge of femininity in a still contemporary work, but pointed to a major actor, who can tackle big roles with a mix of fearlessness and sensitivity.”
Zinnie Harris, better known as a playwright, picked up the CATS Award for Best Director, for A Number, Caryl Churchill’s futuristic drama about cloning.
The Best New Play Award went to Kieran Hurley for Heads Up, the second time that Hurley has won this award following BEATS in 2012.
The National’s theatre critic Nadine McBay, who saw Hurley’s production during last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, called the apocalyptic one-man show “beautiful”, describing it as “brutally effective theatre giving us the heads-up on the potential future of a culture which seems content to imagine how the world will end rather than how a new one may look.”
The Red Bridge and Traverse Theatre Company production of Black Beauty picked up not only the award for Best Production for Children and Young People, but also for Best Design, As well as Best Director for A Number, two further productions at the Royal Lyceum picked up awards: Best Music and Sound — Karine Polwart (composer and musical director), Pippa Murphy (sound designer), Ben Seal (live sound) and Mark Whyles (live sound) for Wind Resistance, and Best Technical Presentation for Alice in Wonderland.
Still game actor Gavin Mitchell, hosted the awards held in Edinburgh yesterday, in its fifteenth year.
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