White Tea

Although David Leddy is known as one of Scotland’s strongest authors, his scripts are not the most interesting part of his productions. White Tea, which is crammed with juicy themes from maternal love to the impact of nuclear bombs on Japanese culture, is most engaging when the words fall away and the subtle atmosphere dictates the pace.

The play is encased in a white box, the audience in kimonos and the two performers in plain white. The uneven drama, characterisation and gradual revelations of guilt and need are framed beautifully. Fortunately, two solid performances and the design itself manage to support the heavy themes. A daughter, called to her adoptive mother’s sick bed by a sweet-natured nurse, slowly discovers the shame behind the mother’s anti-nuclear campaigning, and a friendship grows between the two women.

Selections from The Book of Tea are read out, with fragments of videos displayed on the walls. Despite the shadow of Hiroshima, the clash of European and Japanese culture is resolved in a final merging of funeral rituals. Leddy unfolds the story slowly, with the jarring of personalities eventually leading to an argument and then completion.

Dealing with such serious themes, the structure feels slightly self-conscious and forced, with little space for the emotions to be developed. In the final, closing image - and in the sudden outbreaks of Live Art activity in homage to Yoko Ono - Leddy's gift is revealed. Striking and moving, they have the resonance that the script reaches towards, and project an ethereal symbolism.