The Straw Chair
directed by Polly Creed
at the Finborough Theatre

The tiny Finborough Theatre prides itself on rediscovering plays that have been forgotten. The latest production to grace their auditorium – with a capacity of only 50 – is The Straw Chair, a 1988 Sue Glover play that has not previously been performed outside Scotland. With only four characters, the focus is on their overlapping relationships and the themes of loneliness and female independence that emerge from their conversations speak forcefully to theatregoers in 2022.

The play takes us back to 1735 on Hirta, a remote and Gaelic-speaking Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides. As we wait for the play to begin, we listen to the sounds of waves, wind and gulls. Hirta is about as inaccessible as you can get within the British Isles, and that isolated setting is key to the play. Aneas (Finlay Bain) and Isabel (Rori Hawthorn) are a newly married couple who have just moved to Hirta from Edinburgh for him to conduct missionary work as a minister. She is just 17, young and vulnerable, and bemoans the arduous nature of life there as she already looks forward to the day when they will be able to leave the island. Their bed is made of stone, and there is apparently only one chair on the island.

That eponymous chair introduces us to Rachel (Siobhan Redmond), who has been on the island for six years and treats the straw chair with a dark possessiveness, taking it with her wherever she goes. Initially, she is frenzied and seems to teeter on the edge of madness, declaring herself to be the highest-born person on the island, and openly opining that Isabel is not a pretty girl. She is furious at the world, and treats Oona (Jenny Lee), her doughty and aged servant, with disdain.

The relationship between Isabel and Rachel starts off fractiously, but quickly becomes the rock on which the play is built. They slowly develop a friendship based on what they have in common – they are both trapped on an island they never wished to visit. Rachel (whose story is based on that of the real-life Lady Grange) claims that she was abducted and incarcerated here by her husband, but we initially doubt these claims. Her speech is disconcerting, lacking fluency and coherence, and it is unclear whether she is telling the truth. Redmond’s crazed performance is stupendously good, and, despite her arrogance and bluntness, we find ourselves empathising with her and the situation in which she says she has been placed.

It is Rachel’s situation that tees up one of the key moments in the play. The steward of the island is visiting – a major event, as whole months often pass without anybody new arriving – and Rachel wants to send a letter to the Scottish mainland. She plunges her new fried, Isabel, into a moral dilemma by asking her to take the letter to the boat and hide it appropriately. Will Isabel oblige, thus cementing their bond and helping a fellow woman in need, or will she resist and avoid the possibility that scandal will engulf her and her husband if it emerges that she has helped this social outcast? The situation is complicated by Aneas having ordered Isabel to cut off her budding friendship with Rachel, who he does not trust. Should Isabel tell her husband about Rachel’s request, or can she go against his will?

The question of how much independence and power these women have is explored further in Isabel’s developing character. Initially, she’s shy and repressed, but determined to be a good wife as she chooses to accompany Aneas to Kirta rather than stay in Edinburgh. Her self-confidence grows in her various relationships, and she increasingly allows her emotions to shine through. She wants to be in control of her own life, and is willing to risk upsetting her husband Aneas to make that happen. Bain’s performance as Aneas is solid, serving as a foil for the other characters throughout.

However, the minister’s presence in the play also demonstrates one of its weaknesses. His attempts to bring Christianity to the islanders are constantly discussed prior to the interval. The locals have heard from missionaries before, but not for many years, and, while they know the commandments and go through the formalities of Christianity, they retain pagan beliefs. Their beliefs are used to demonstrate how different the islanders are from Scottish people on the mainland, and we hear much about the challenges Aneas faces in his ministry. Yet this plotline is almost completely absent from the second half of the play, and it becomes unclear why so much emphasis was given to it earlier. This is reflective of a wider failure to tie up plotlines and maintain a suitable pacing – key information regularly feels like it is revealed either too early or too late.

Thankfully, the play can rely on four remarkably strong characters and a brilliantly portrayed setting. The spirit of the island is beautifully evoked in all its remoteness and its beauty, its oddness and naturalness, aided by Anna Short’s hauntingly poetic score, and by Jonathan Chan’s lighting of the plain backdrop in different hues of white and blue – a simple ploy but hugely effective in creating the illusion of different times of day and different weather. Alex Marker’s set is sparsely furnished, drawing attention to the symbolic furniture – the sole chair, and the uncomfortable bed.

These artistic and design choices draw the audience into the secluded setting, and allow us to consider our own relationship to the other key theme of this play – loneliness and isolation. Having been through multiple lockdowns since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, witnessing these true-to-life characters dealing with their unwanted remoteness encourages us to reflect on how the last two years have changed us. This 34-year old play may be set in the eighteenth century, but it is one that speaks to us in 2022.

The Straw Chair is playing at Finborough Theatre from 19 April to 14 May 2022.

-Christopher Day is currently a PhD student at the University of Westminster.