There are sad drunks and there are happy drunks. Elaine C Smith’s Mrs Puntila is a relentless drunk. In Denise Mina’s cross-cast Brecht update, the actor ploughs ahead with the sturdy determination – and lack of nuance – of a seasoned boozer.
In this socialist satire, she is a millionaire who swings from intolerance to benevolence the more she drinks. But Smith paints the benevolent Puntila with too broad a brush stroke. Her drunken outrage at social injustice should be funny – or at least heavily ironic – and the inner compassion released by the bottle should be endearing. Instead, the inebriated Puntila comes across as troublesome, contrary and, oddly, not especially different from her sober self. There have been productions where the drunk/sober joke wears thin, but this one struggles to make it funny in the first place.
That’s partly because Murat Daltaban’s production lacks a governing idea. Even if we recognise the voice-of-the-people good sense of the chauffeur Matti (an excellent Steven McNicoll), it’s hard to place this Puntila. As rude as she is rich, she is an unlikely fit for the upper-class Scotland of today or the 1940s Germany of the original. Who is this figure of satirical ridicule?
That’s not to say Daltaban doesn’t have ideas; he has plenty. From the distracting game of invisible badminton to the multi-genre choruses of Oğuz Kaplangi’s score, a lot happens on Tom Piper’s scaffolding set. There are also scenes, particularly in the second half, that flash into political life, as Mina lets in the acrid smell of payday loans, the gig economy and food banks.
Such real-life injustices could make sense of Brecht’s play. But they are fighting against the production’s tonal uncertainty; where some performances are precisely rooted, others are vague and cartoon-like and jokes fall flat.
Perhaps this is why Mina’s most provocative theme becomes apparent way too late. Only in the closing minutes do we see Puntila as a symbol of Scotland’s arrogant landowning class, boozily romanticising the country she exploits. With that as a starting point, the production might have had a clearer sense of purpose.
• At the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 21 March. Then at Tramway, Glasgow, 25 March-11 April.
