‘Pan Am 103 was last seen in a fireball over Scotland.’

One American plane. One Scottish town. Countless reverberations.

The Women of Lockerbie

Review of rehearsed reading, by Hugh Williams

Who would have thought that a group of actors, dressed in black, sitting in a semi-circle on a bare stage could make an afternoon play reading so dramatic, so riveting and almost unbearably moving?

Two factors contributed to this extraordinary achievement. The first was the sheer quality of the writing. Mirroring the early Greek drama, with its alternating choruses and dialogue scenes, and with most of the reported action happening offstage – Antigone, in the play by Sophocles, caught between conflicting and equally strong and demanding loyalties to family and to the state, was clearly the model here – Deborah Breevort’s script bristled with startling metaphor and shocking revelation. The language itself was stark in its simplicity and its clever use of what one can only call “repetition plus” –   when one character echoes the words of another, but then projects the story further by a surprising addition of a word or phrase.

Two phrases stood out for me: “Hatred is only wounded love”, declares Olive ( Kate Napier ), who moves from the soft and reasoning tones of a peacemaker and reconciler to  a sudden and dramatically explosive outburst of anger. Maddy (Suzanne Parke ), the  deranged American mother who is searching the foggy hillside for the remains of her son, seven years after “Pan Am 103 was last seen in a fireball over Scotland” and has so far dominated the story with her grief, says, accusingly, to the pacific Olive “You haven’t lost a son”. “No, I haven’t”, says Olive quietly and then bursts out with a volley that rocks Maddy back into sanity, “But I lost a daughter – and a husband - when that plane fell on my house”.

The other most memorable phrase, among many, comes at the end of the play. Mr Jones ( Andrew Hodson  ), the hard-nosed American diplomat has been sent reluctantly from Washington, (“Lockerbie is the State Department’s Siberia”) with the task of ordering all the remains of the crash, including the clothes of those who died, to be burned because they have been contaminated with blood and guts.  He has to face the media after giving way before the silent pressure of two hundred candle-bearing women who demand to wash the clothes and send them back to the families of the victims. He cannot bring himself to utter the cliché that “love has triumphed”, but latches onto a phrase used by Olive (she has many of the best lines in the play): “Hatred shall not have the last word in Lockerbie”.

The second factor that made this production so powerful was the high quality of the acting. Director Jack Lynch also played the part of Maddy’s long-suffering husband Bill, who has so far been unable to express his own grief. Jack had assembled a strong cast who worked together as a team without any weak link. What was striking was their ability to listen to each other and then respond with feeling. Jane West and Christine Channer spoke the more formal lines of the Chorus with a clarity and precision that carried the story forward.

Welcome comic relief was provided by the versatile Edie Campbell as Hattie, the cleaner of Mr Jones’s office, a very human and humorous Trojan horse who provided the information the rebellious women needed and shrugged off the threat of being arrested for spying by constantly wrong-footing her frantic boss.

Kate Napier as Olive and Suzanne Parke as Maddy move convincingly on opposite trajectories. The one from sweet reasonableness to bitter hatred, the other from self-centred grief, which has all but unhinged her mind, to helping her husband Bill to unlock the grief he has so far been unable to express. When the otherwise stern Mr Jones finally produces her son’s suitcase, the one remnant of him that has survived, Maddy is about to tear it open frantically when she suddenly offers it to Bill and lets him open it, and thus also open his heart. Jack Lynch’s tears, as he did so, were real, which made the climax of the play all the more moving.

Audience responses to ScripTease reading of The Women of Lockerbie:

Disturbingly excellent, from the sublime to the extreme.  Well done.

Amazing, wonderful, very, very moving - must take this round the world.

An incredible experience of catharsis. I’ve studied Greek theatre for years and not understood it (catharsis) until today (theatre student).

Contact LynchPin Productions

to bring

THE WOMEN OF LOCKERBIE

as a ScripTease event

or full-stage production

to your venue or school.

poster photo: James Davies

photos by Mark Dean

Bill Livingston - Spencer Cummins

Olive Allison - Edie Campbell

Woman 1 - Audrey Hofmeyr

Woman 2 - Majella Yorston

Madeline Livingston - Suzanne Parke

George Jones - Leon Bearman

Hattie - Rowan Suart

Directed by Jack Lynch

Design, Rob Gregory

Lighting - Phil Doswell

Stage Manager - Elisabeth Tooms

Press Officer - Amy Yorston

Inspired by true events and written in the style of Greek Tragedy, this is a fictionalised account of how the women of a small Scottish town take charge of their own grieving.  Deborah Brevoort’s finely-tuned play lays bare the range of emotions felt by ordinary people rocked by the disaster. Through their actions, the women of Lockerbie are determined that love must triumph over hate.

'For me the women shared the indomitable spirit of Euripides’ women amid the ruins of Troy.  And in our age I think that terrorism is becoming our Trojan War.'                                       Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort's Women of Lockerbie is a beautifully constructed and nuanced  exploration of grief - a play of utmost subtlety and depth.  I'm grateful that LynchPin's compelling production, performed with comparable style and beauty at the Guildford Electric last May, succeeded in bringing this study of emotional journeys to life in a way  that has stayed with me ever since.  I was mesmerised by this lyrical examination of  trauma, and also unsettled by the painful realisation that those unable to come to terms  with capsizing grief may become fixed to the spot, consumed by their own sorrow.  Witnessing how the trauma of Lockerbie shattered the lives of some, while strengthened  others into fierce fighters, this moving play about overwhelming pain and the  unexpected path to forgiveness is a rare jewel among fictional accounts of real-life  atrocity, rarely staged this side of the pond but badly needed in today's world of global terrorism.

Marina Cantacuzino, Founder of The Forgiveness Project (Oct 2011)