Traverse Theatre 3/11/26
'Man to Man' by Manfred Karge, translated by Anthony Vivis, revised by Stephen Unwin
Director Stephen Unwin, designer Bunny Christie
Tilda Swinton celebrates her 66th birthday on 5th November, the second night of 'Man to Man' at the Traverse Theatre, where she first performed Karge's monologue in 1987. The play recounts the life of Ella from her 20s, when she takes the decision to impersonate her late husband, Max to retirement age: “I'm 66' she says near the end. In 1987 Swinton was the age of the young Ella, now she shares the perspective of the older character.
I was lucky to get a ticket for the play – I was online when they went on general sale, so this is as much a reflection on Tilda Swinton's career in the UK, as it is a review. She is to be complimented on her decision to mount the play at, and boost the income of, the Traverse where she started her stage career. Under the influential directorship of Jenny Killick in the 1980s the 100 seat theatre, then up a stair in the Grassmarket, provided a Fringe (and year-round ) programme to match Frank Dunlop's World Theatre series at the International Festival. Plays in translation, like Karge's, along with Jo Clifford's early quirky takes on European history, and Peter Arnott's 'White Rose' celebrating World War II female Soviet pilots gave Scottish writers and actors a powerful voice. Arnott's 1985 play was Swinton's first appearance at the Traverse, acting with Ken Stott and Kate Duchene.
Jenny Killick's imaginative approach to programming drew Tilda Swinton to the stage at the same time as Derek Jarman's experimental film-making attracted her to films. His 'Caravaggio', already eight years in the making, gave Swinton her first role for him in 1986, and coincided with an upturn in his funding as this and later films were taken up by television channels. Jarman, the first gay man in public life to speak openly about his HIV diagnosis made political points through historical films. Swinton was Queen Isabella in his 'Edward II' (the probably gay Christopher Marlowe's play about a homosexual king)and took the role of the Nurse in his 1989 film of Britten's War Requiem. Swinton's stage and screen appearances reflected her own political beliefs, her feminism and her support for gay rights.
Tilda Swinton was born to a wealthy Borders family and has lived for many years in Nairn. In Scotland, apart from the Traverse appearances, her name remains associated with John Byrne's 'Your Cheatin' Heart', his second six-part BBC series in 1990, a black comedy in the world of Country and Western music and Glasgow gangsters, after his Rock 'n' Roll 'Tutti Fruiti' kick-started the careers of Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson in 1987. Tilda's character, Cissy Crouch, described in the script as “beanpole skinny” is a singer with a poor taste in men. The Byrne-designed opening sequence shows her on horseback with her corkscrew curls under a cowboy hat.
There's a full house in the Traverse, aged from 20s to 80s, all responsive to the savagery, the melancholy and the humour in this almost literally stripped-bare performance. 'Man to Man' is a play about survival, about a world where a woman on her own struggles to keep her independence. After failed relationships, Ella finds Max is the man for her, but soon he develops cancer. His job as a forklift operator means that he works at a distance from the other men on the site. Ella's face-covering disguise is sufficient for them to accept her impersonation after his death.
The play is set in a 1950s style kitchen with one-bar electric fire and ancient fridge. Ella first appears in a tatty housecoat but soon removes this. Throughout she wears red Y-fronts with white piping, a string vest and heavy boots emphasising her skinny legs. Her face and parts of her body are covered in white paint and her white/blonde hair is unruly. This unflinching look at the human body matches the stripping down of Ella's female character in her male role. She's cautious about Hitler's populist promises while flickering film of demonstrations, and shouted speeches seem to burst through the kitchen wall. A young woman in the canteen takes a shine to 'Max', and to help her avoid arrest for political activity, Ella provides the woman with the only remnant of her real self, the hidden identity card. World War II sees her imprisoned, an endless routine of sleeping on a bench and pacing the cell all day.
The play's progress isn't straightforward: poignant snatches of memory of her mother's death, and Max calling her his “Snow White” rub against her bitter jokes and mockery of her fellow workers. Always there is the sheer practical grind of staying alive and working. Director Stephen Unwin has extended the scope of his revival of 'Man to Man' to include references to modern right wing demonstrations, removing the plausibility of the original 40-year time frame, but pointing up the grotesque circularity of the political changes in German and world politics. At the curtain call – an immediate standing ovation - Swinton appears with her shock of hair dampened down, and ,to laughter, removes the padding which we've previously seen her insert into her Y-fronts.
Ella is an old woman at the end of the play, almost contented with a life in front of the telly. But at 66 might this performance (going on to Berlin and New York) mark the resumption of Swinton's stage career? Perhaps as Lady Macbeth, or Goneril, or in a new role still to be written?
Derek Jarman's film of Britten's 'War Requiem' and some episodes of 'Your Cheatin' Heart’ are available on YouTube
photo credit Rüdiger Glatz
