Night Waking: Mull Theatre's 'darkly funny' new drama based on the Hebrides-set novel by Sarah Moss
Set on a fictional Hebridean island, Sarah Moss’s powerful 2011 novel Night Waking is to have its first stage adaptation at Mull Theatre this autumn, writes Joyce McMillan
Motherhood and apple pie. It’s the phrase we use for the things that our secular society still holds sacred, the things no politician dares to disparage; and still, people often talk of motherhood as the defining experience of a woman’s life - the greatest, the most joyful and the most empowering.
The truth about motherhood, though, is often very different, particularly in an age when women often live far from traditional family support networks; and that’s the situation faced by Anna, the central character in Sarah Moss’s powerful 2011 novel Night Waking. Desperately trying to pursue her academic career as a social historian, but struggling to combine her work with the sheer hard labour of mothering two young sons, Anna faces a new life on the fictional Scottish island of Colsay, where her husband has both work and landowning family connections, while she - from a more ordinary class background - knows no-one. Her struggle to hold onto her sanity and identity under these pressures is Sarah Moss’s theme; and it’s one that tens of thousands of readers have found both compelling, and fiercely recognisable.
Now, though, Night Waking is to have its first stage adaptation, commissioned by Mull Theatre’s artistic director Rebecca Atkinson-Lord from Irish-Mauritian writer Shireen Mula; and between them - with actress Nicola Jo Cully - they are looking forward to navigating the complexities of Anna’s situation for audiences across Scotland.
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“The book is so much about Anna’s voice and experience,” says Atkinson-Lord, “that we found in the end that this was only going to make sense as a monologue, a solo show.
“Anna’s inner life is so complicated, though - with her experience as an isolated mother in the foreground, and then all the strands to do with her changing relationship with the island and its people, and her work which reflects on how people have coped with parenthood at different times in history - that the story still features a huge number of characters, including Anna’s two very vividly drawn little boys, all of whom are played by Nicola Jo.
“It’s going to be a two-hour play, with an interval, because there are so many layers to Anna’s story; and as someone who - like a very high proportion of Mull’s population now - came to live here from somewhere else, I’m completely fascinated by the way this story reflects on the experience of colonisation, and of losing the power to control your own fate. It’s about how Anna - partly through her academic work - begins to understand that aspect of the island’s history, and its impact on the people; while at the the same time recognising how the experience of motherhood has in some ways “colonised” her own body, and shaken her sense of autonomy.”
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“The book is also,” says Shireen Mula, “a really beautiful and sometimes poetic piece of writing, with a strand of very dark comedy, and a really sharp wit. So although the play’s underlying themes are so serious, there is also an element of real fun and enjoyment in the storytelling.
“It’s also noticeable that readers do have very different responses to Anna as a character, with some reacting very strongly against her simply because her experiences and feelings challenge so many conventional assumptions about motherhood. So is there some kind of abuse here? Is she neglecting her children? Or is she just being honest about the complexity of a mother’s feelings, in a way that’s still quite unusual?”
“What we’re hoping,” adds Atkinson-Lord, “is that the play will be complex and rich enough speak to everyone in the audience - to those who have always lived here and those who have come here, as well as the audiences we encounter on tour. Night Waking really is a story about the complexity of all those relationships, and their deep historic roots; and we’re thrilled to be bringing it to theatre audiences here, and across Scotland, this autumn.”
Night Waking is at Mull Theatre, Tobermory, 28-29 September, then on tour across Scotland until 31 October. For details see www.antobarandmulltheatre.co.uk/whats-on/night-waking
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