When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, many theatre corporations may solely shut up store. Not so Citadel Arts Group. The Leith firm, which is devoted to staging the work of older playwrights, was in no temper to attend round. “Oh no, we did not take into account stopping,” says co-founder Liz Hare. “Most of us are fairly outdated; a 12 months is valuable.”Turning to Zoom, Hare continued to work together with her staff of playwrights, merely switching their focus from stage to audio. The primary fruits of that coverage are already there to listen to on the corporate web site. They embrace a three-part model of Susan Chaney’s Past The Ash Tide, which had been scheduled for the cancelled Leith Competition, in addition to performs embracing every thing from maritime analysis to neurotic crows.”There was by no means any query of being silenced,” says Hare. “As older individuals, we’re those who’ve been worst hit by Covid and we have been decided we have been going to be up and operating as shortly as we may by logging on. We have by no means been busier.”Now the corporate is within the midst of an much more bold challenge. It has turned to Leithers One Household, a historic novel by William Haddow that follows the fictional Preston household from the 14th century to the current day. As Leith grows from a fishing village to a significant buying and selling port, the Prestons cope with every thing from plague to witches, from smuggling to warfare.In a sequence of stand-alone chapters, members of the family seem as pickpockets, intercourse employees, bankers and fishwives. “They pop up, Forrest Gump type, at numerous main occasions in Leith historical past,” says Hare. “Whether or not it is the outbreak of a plague, a mutiny of a Highland regiment, Spanish and Dutch troopers taking pictures at one another from their ships throughout the Shore, there’s all the time a Preston there.”The novel, which was printed final 12 months, got here to Hare’s consideration by way of her pals on the native Yard Heads theatre firm. “They thought it could be up our avenue and, in fact, it was,” she says. “That is the type of factor we have been doing since we began: taking residing reminiscences, historical past and native reminiscences and utilizing that as a foundation for creating performs. So we jumped on the likelihood.”Its episodic construction made it a main candidate for adaptation, so Hare shared it across the Citadel writers and requested them to make a pitch for the chapter they’d most wish to tackle. Between them, they cowl half the guide. “They every selected a chapter they have been drawn to which, fortunately, has given us an expansion by means of the centuries,” she says. “They have been actually impressed and have produced a few of their finest writing.”The primary episode, The Betrayal by Hilary Spiers, is already out, telling the story of an try by highly effective forces in Edinburgh to seize management of the port. It is an early signal of Leith’s fraught relationship with its bigger neighbour. Including to the native color are the swans you’ll be able to see on the water immediately and who determine as recurring motif by means of the performs.The second episode, The Preceptory by Susan Chaney, goes stay tomorrow, with a story of spiritual fervour. Tales of French spies, hangings and Italian immigrants will observe.”It’s historical past checked out from the standpoint of the hooks, crooks and comedian singers,” says Hare, who met Haddow within the flesh for the primary time for the Scotsman photoshoot, regardless of the novelist’s enthusiastic involvement within the challenge. “They are not grand individuals. There’s one banker – however he is an absolute rogue as properly.”Hare has divvied up the performs with fellow administrators Adam Tomkins and Mark Kydd, all of them stretching their expertise as they discover the probabilities of audio drama and the be taught the technical necessities of working with sound. “Every author has their very own type,” says Tomkins, who directed the primary instalment. “It means you have got distinct chapters all through the collection. They’ve all executed a superb job at creating characters you’ll be able to relate to despite the fact that they supposedly lived 400 years in the past. It reveals how little instances have modified.”The artwork of adaptation is a tremendous talent at one of the best of instances and the writers, aiming for episodes lasting solely ten minutes, have needed to develop into specialists in concision. “They chose what was dramatic,” says Hare. “The chapters are filled with incident however I do not assume Invoice could be upset if I mentioned they are not very character pushed, so it was virtually a means of including relatively than subtracting, growing the characters extra.”She provides: “What we have been doing for the previous 12 months is gaining new expertise. It is a problem for the writers to inform tales that come from a really visible guide – it is filled with the sights, smells and sounds of Leith – and to inform these tales clearly with solely voice, music and sound results. They’ve risen to the problem fairly properly.”Contemplating the potential of placing among the performs on stage as soon as restrictions permit, she is delighted to have been in a position to keep true to Citadel’s followers by means of these extraordinary months. “Our audiences are appreciating it too,” she says. “Loads of them are older people who find themselves caught indoors. Considered one of our listeners mentioned our audio performs have been the spotlight of her week.””That is proper,” says Tomkins. “We’re attempting to maintain that feeling of connectedness with the work over time. We wish it to be satisfying… in addition to darkish, harmful and dramatic.”Leithers One Household is accessible at www.citadelgoesviral.com
