Backhold wrestling, a folk sport that thrives in Scotland’s Highland Games, brings five disparate women together in Nat McCleary’s questing debut play. It’s a pointed image for grappling with a national identity in flux, with personal identities that tussle with contradictions.
Everyone in the wrestling team hugs their wounds and secrets. Coach Pamela is intimidatingly certain in her instruction, yet her own identity swims in doubt. Imogen, a minted Londoner (“Black first, rich second”), wants to educate Scottish-Jamaican Jo in the ways of Black sisterhood, separating her from childhood friend Chantelle. Timorous Helen is older but not yet ready for the knitting group. They may all wear the same’s tie-dyed T-shirts, but team spirit continually fractures.
I still don’t quite understand the art of backhold wrestling – it looks a bit like a grumpy cuddle. But the Highland Games are a fertile setting – a vintage image of Scottishness that sits uneasily in the modern world, as racist slurs in the three-legged race make clear. “Surely all of Scotland can’t be that white,” says Imogen (Efè Agwele) – and the cast look pointedly around the theatre audience.
When you’re thrown, we’re told, you’re in suspension – vulnerable, questioning, “waiting for a resolution”. It’s an interesting place for drama. We also hear about wrestling’s categories and rules of engagement; the shifting middle ground in the tug of war; tartans that don’t encompass every wearer: the metaphors here write themselves, not always with nuance.
Johnny McKnight’s tireless production, with movement direction by Lucy Glassbrook, bounces around on the balls of its feet. With 60 scenes in just 80 minutes, McCleary’s scrappy dialogue scenes often feel all too brief but her monologues pursue a thought further, and the strong cast mine nuggets of feeling whenever they get the opportunity: Adiza Shardow’s quizzical distress as Jo, the doubt behind Lesley Hart’s coaching fervour or Maureen Carr’s shy smile as Helen belatedly channels her inner bad bitch.
Costume designer Sabrina Henry has created an original tartan for the production – a punchy weave cut with pink and yellow. Summoning a self-defined clan with ambivalent Scottish roots, it’s called, aptly, Homegrown.
At Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, until 27 August
