Scottish Theatre Highlights: October 2021

The weather may be getting colder, but theatres in Scotland are just warming up. After such long closures, it's great to see venues opening their doors and touring productions hitting the road again. Read on to discover our top theatrical picks of the month.

After an 18-month hiatus, Glasgow's Tron Theatre is finally reopening – and what a comeback! A brand new version of Shakespeare's The Tempest will be taking place in the Tron's main auditorium from 29 Oct to 13 Nov, during the COP26 summit. Directed by Tron Theatre's Artistic Director Andy Arnold, and devised with a cast of eleven Scottish-based, female identifying actors, the production aims to draw on the play's themes of 'male power, greed and the colonisation of other lands and their indigenous inhabitants'. Timely.

The Tron have also teamed up with the Citizens Theatre, currently without a building, to stage a double bill of Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett and a specially commissioned companion piece, Go On, by Linda McLean. Fans of absurdist legend Beckett might be intrigued by McLean's parallel play, which explores a woman's consideration of how an AI replacement might allow her to exist in the future. With Niall Buggy playing Krapp and Maureen Beattie playing Jane in Go On, this double bill is an opportunity to see two first-class actors come into their own with some fantastic writing to play with (until 9 Oct).

The National Theatre of Scotland will be touring Kieran Hurley's adaption of The Enemy, based on Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name, across Scotland from 15 October and into early November. Set in a 'once great Scottish town' where a massive redevelopment project threatens to rock the community's foundations, it sounds provocative and compelling: check out our interview with Hurley and director Finn den Hertog in our October issue. In Dundee, the Scottish Dance Theatre will be returning to the Dundee Rep stage with a double bill of Amethyst & TuTuMucky (29 & 30 Oct).

DanceLive festival returns to Aberdeen this month (14-17 Oct) – highlights include Born to Protest, a hip-hop piece that showcases Black excellence from Just Us Dance Theatre, and Burnt Out, Penny Chivas' solo piece exploring the impacts of the climate crisis. In Edinburgh, October will see Sound Stage – the Lyceum's six-month season of audio plays – draw to a close, and they're finishing things off with a world premiere by Timberlake Wertenbaker (29-31 Oct). The show, which will look at our relationship to nature and the environment, is still untitled – but with a name like Wertenbaker's attached, that only adds to the intrigue.