On the back wall of Becky Minto’s bar-room set, a temporary looking collection of rough-hewn wooden planks, are two framed slogans. One of them reads “Je me souviens,” the Quebecois motto about never forgetting your past. The other reads “Fialachd do’n fhògarrach,” a Gaelic phrase promising hospitality to the outcast.
The juxtaposition of the two languages would be unusual anywhere but the Lac-Mégantic region of Quebec which, in the 19th century, became populated by settlers from France and the Western Isles of Scotland.
Stornoway, Quebec may sound like a fanciful title, but playwright Calum L MacLeòid sets his “Gaelic western” in a real settlement. The residents remember it was once called the Depot and, before that, Bruceville.
Tellingly, they have forgotten the name used by the indigenous population for the previous 12,000 years. They have no connection to this land and, in the play’s most poignant moment, the landlady Uilleamina Bouchard (MJ Deans) dreams of her ancestral home on the Isle of Lewis, where people have a story for every rock, stream and path.
Not that MacLeòid’s play is especially reflective. Directed by Muireann Kelly for Theatre Gu Leòr and performed in four languages, including BSL, it is a single-set drama that imagines a confrontation between a pair of outlaws on the night of an early winter storm. One of them is Donald Morrison (Dòl Eoin McKinnon), a real-life fugitive who was wanted for arson and murder. The other is Màiri MacNeil (Elspeth Turner), a fellow outlaw, who has reasons of her own for pursuing Morrison.
It is with MacNeil that the playwright’s interests lie. She is the mysterious stranger beloved of westerns, knocking back hard liquor and cleaning out her gun, much to the consternation of the fearful locals. Turner gives a swaggering performance, a woman as witty as she is composed, running rings around the unworldly locals as they seek in vain to protect Morrison, a more sketchily drawn figure.
MacNeil’s independence contrasts with Uilleamina’s servitude and, as the men flounder and fulminate, the women forge a bond that promises freedom and adventure to come. Their developing relationship in this culturally rich environment gives an otherwise old-fashioned drama its intrigue.
• Now touring: at Eden Court, Inverness, 11 April; then Tron, Glasgow, 13-15 April.
