down - and back up again - on the farm

farm landarches theatre, glasgow. run ended; touring until april 6

HHH

IT'S not the most enticing premise - a play about the decline of traditional farming communities in the face of agribusiness and the Common Agricultural Policy - but then perhaps my tepid enthusiasm is a symptom of Britain's widening urban/rural schism. In any case, Bess Ross's debut play Farm Land is broader in scope than that description suggests: it's more about the erosion of the soul than of the soil.

Set in Easter Ross, it follows the Bain family from David and Jean's premarital fumblings to the moment when their grown-up son sets off for a better life across the Atlantic. Over those 20 years the political and physical landscapes shift, and tractor-driving David is forced out of farm work. He finds employment in the oil industry, but suffers an industrial accident. He is, however, luckier than the morose family retainer Chae, who disappears into the gloaming, ominously clutching a bottle of whisky and a shotgun.

The play is laced with references to intensive farming and monolithic diktats from Brussels, but its polemical thrust is less interesting than its psychological underbelly. Here, Ross explores David's compulsion to overwork and the way his humiliating loss of earnings and status impacts on the family.

Punctuated by radio bulletins, the narrative dots around in time - but this is the most sophisticated element of a pedestrian script. Ross creates flawed but sympathetic characters, especially David and his daughter Julie, but doesn't have the heart to drive them to crushing tragedy. The ending reassures us that love conquers all, a message that's hard to dislike but low on dramatic impact. There are some finely written sequences, such as Chae's suicidal soliloquy about his love of the land, but too many stilted lines.

The actors in Mariela Stevenson's brisk, unsentimental production for Thurso-based Grey Coast Theatre seem aware of this at times, though all five work hard to give their characters lifeblood. Helen McAlpine's adolescent Julie totters convincingly between feisty and vulnerable, while Allan Tall supplies dour resignation as Chae - and some suitably melancholic songs from the sidelines. I imagine country folk will be gratified to have their troubles brought to light, but we townies may need a bit more convincing.

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