Peter Arnott’s Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape, a co-production between the Royal Lyceum, and Pitlochry Festival Theatre, arrives in Edinburgh after a successful run in the highlands. The setting, a comfortable highland pile occupied by an assortment of characters, feels familiar. The stately home, a regency staple, has never ceased to charm the playwrights who followed, a natural microcosm for a chosen clash of middle-class philosophies.
In Group Portrait In a Summer Landscape, Arnott revisits the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, making ideas of democracy inevitable in the drama. Despite this, the central theme is far more domestic, a study of familial collapse, and the prolonged death of a dream reluctant to give way to its successors.
Holders of that stubborn ideal, George Rennie (John Michie) and wife Edie (Deirdre Davis) preside over their estate, simultaneously estranged and bound by shared grief for their long-dead son Will (Robbie Scott). Once, the retired academic heavyweight and his former actress spouse were a golden pair, holding court over admiring students and old allies.
Now George has summoned all their former courtiers to the decaying, but beautiful remains of their domain, intending a reckoning. Will it be a final hurrah or just an overdue wake?
The answer is neither. Indeed, by the final scene, it remains unclear whether Arnott has decided his characters’ ultimate fate. Nevertheless, the journey to indecision is at turns fascinating, compelling, and not a little humorous. These qualities arise, in no small part, from the sheer quality of the acting across the board, and from pacey, clear direction from David Greig.
Michie has all the weighty presence needed to fill the self-regarding boots of his professorial alter-ego, whilst Davis is more mercurial and naturally sympathetic. Without a potent cast around them, the two might dominate to the exclusion of all others, but such is not the case. Benny Young visibly thrives as Moon, Edie’s long-standing thespian friend, in some ways a fruity stereotype, but still a welcome source of vinegar when others wax over-lyrical. Sally Reid’s overlooked daughter could descend into the put-upon victim, but she transcends it with a nuanced, fully fleshed performance. Other parts are less deftly written, particularly Matthew Trevannion’s survivalist-turning-fascist Charlie, but he as with the entire cast, still manages to impress. There are no weak links.
The sheer strength of the performances, however, somewhat flatters the text. The dialogue is first-rate, and the conversations, arguments, and monologues are fluent and captivating. The over-arching narrative, on the other hand, is a little muddled, a mixture of themes which threatens no resolution before tying up at least a few threads in the nick of time. Then there’s the ghost subplot, a device used to revisit the past in recorded snippets, and destined for surprising sentimentality.
Arnott is saying something about societal change, and the inevitable conflict between past and present, but what precisely isn’t clear.
Such are Arnott and co’s talents that realisation that the play isn’t going to manifest any clear commentary on the world, or even this slice of literate society, comes late. It’s possible that the compact run time (~2 hours with a 25-minute interval), just isn’t enough of a canvas for the themes to find a proper resolution. Alternatively, the romantic crisis between Rennie’s long-suffering side-kick Frank (Keith Macpherson), and his pregnant SNP advocate partner Kath (Patricia Panther), could be removed to make space for development elsewhere. It’s a vestigial subplot and adds nothing to the proceedings.
Nonetheless, there’s no mistaking the quality of Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape, the acting well matched by Jessica Worrall’s gorgeous set, and Simon Wilkinson’s ambitious, and evocative lighting. There’s enough to the guts of the play to warrant further iteration and every reason to believe that a satisfying story arc can be chiselled from the first-rate dialogue and potent characterisation.
