A remote cottage on the wild, windswept north-east coast of Scotland is the perfect place for murder. Staged in a dark basement in an old gothic church should create the right atmosphere.
Within a black box stage, the set is a sitting room with log fire and sofa. A man enters through a curtained doorway, tall, muscular, shaved head, a tough guy.
It’s a ponderously slow start as he looks around the room, anxiously frowning. A mobile phone rings and he checks his own, searches a bag then kneels down looking at something.
From row 5, I cannot see what he is doing so need to stand up. Ah! – he’s traced the phone to a dead body wrapped in canvas sheeting on the floor.
A girl enters and in unison they shout a few F words as they stare at this horrific scene. The blame game begins as they argue about what went wrong: “ a perfect location but a shit plan” .. “ I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.”.
Lines from Macbeth come immediately to mind - planning the murder, the blood, the guilt - with a similar scenario.
It slowly transpires that Will and Gemma are long term friends, lovers and now partners in crime. The corpse is apparently her husband, which means she will now benefit financially from his death. But first they must dispose of the body in a loch or over the cliff.
The problem is that this is the Solstice, 21st June, and the longest day when it will not become dark at all.
Unfortunately the lighting design does not give the effect of evening summer sun; through the window a glimmer of light shines like the moon on a screen of black darkness.
They sit drinking tea and place the mugs on the long, low body bag using it as a coffee table. This macabre scene is straight out of Hitchcock’s play/movie The Rope, in which two gay men lure a friend to their flat, strangle him and put the body in a trunk. This is then used as a table during their cocktail party that evening.
As Will and Gemma question each other and reminisce, we learn more about their strange relationship. They cannot trust one another, that’s for sure. But who is the more psychotically unstable?
A stage thriller needs to be an intriguing whodunit , or a “will he get away with it” plot. This falls into the second category but with poor production values – set, lighting, sound effects, sight lines - any sense of gripping tension is lacking.
Mark Kydd and Annabel Logan do their best to portray their cold, calculating characters but the overloaded storyline with tangled twists and turns is all rather melodramatic (verging on farcical) by the end.
Solstice has the potential to be developed into a Hitchcock/modern Macbeth-styled psychological thriller. The complex plot and Highlands' location would certainly suit a TV drama series instead of being crammed into this one hour stage play.
Show times
1 - 26 August, 2013: 13.45 (not 12, 19)
Ticket prices
£10 (£8)