I’m no fan of seagulls – only the other day, one of them snatched a sandwich out of my hand – but I’ve never thought of them as being quite as nasty as they appear in this reworking of the Hans Christian Andersen tale.
Played by Jo Clifford, the seagull that intrudes on Maria MacDonell’s mother duck as she tends to her “problem family” has been schooled in rightwing survivalist ideology. It squawks at her to “put sentimentality aside”, to let nature take its course and to discard the “wet, wide-eyed and very, very large” duckling that has appeared in her nest. The bird’s “every gull for themselves” philosophy is as brutal as it is selfish.
Nature is often cruel, though, and it is with a matter-of-fact bluntness that Clifford and MacDonell mention the two ducklings that leave and don’t come back, the one whose mother drowns it for its own good and a scene that, in human terms, would be called incestuous rape. In the wild, there are worse things than being ugly.
Directed at a stately pace by Ian Cameron, with a subtle and varied sound design by Georgina MacDonell Finlayson, The Not So Ugly Duckling stays surprisingly close to the Andersen original. Unlike the original, however, the performers sometimes break off to discuss the characters and deconstruct the plot, recalling school bullies and censorious teachers, as the forlorn duckling is used and abused on its journey into freezing winter.
Whether such discussion is needed is a moot point. Andersen’s story already exists on a metaphorical level. Like an untold number of stories, from Cinderella to Great Expectations to Billy Elliot, it describes the progress of a misunderstood child who flourishes into an accomplished adult. The tale has such archetypal appeal, we can make our own connections. We don’t need anyone to spell it out.
Clifford and MacDonell do, though, make a variation on a theme. The duckling might be trapped in the ice, as if frozen in time, its body a “disappointment”, but the play rejects the idea of transformation. The swan is not an ideal to aspire to, any more than a rich princess is superior to a poor servant girl. Instead, this is a journey to becoming ourselves.
At Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, until 27 August.
