Discussion: Cora Bisset

Discussion held with Cora Bisset, actress playing the part of Chris Guthrie in the 2001 Prime Productions production of Sunset Song.

Interviewer
Tell us about your main character.

Cora Bisset
Chris Guthrie. Chris is - she's an unusual combination. I think in some ways she's a very complex character and in some ways she's a very simple character. In the start of the play, she's a young teenager and she is torn between her kind of earthy side which is very much a part of the land that she's been brought up in and grown up in and loves, and also a side that sees beyond that - a kind of ambitious side, the more progressive side that looks towards education and moving out of the town that she's been brought up in and developing in a kind of academic sense. I think those two opposing sort of roots are reflected in many different ways. There's a side of her that's very passionate and kind of gutsy and as I see it quite feisty and alive and there's another side in which I see all those things in her but I also see quite a sense and a centred sort of person.

Interviewer
You sort of know she'll do well don't you?

Cora Bisset
Yeah, there's a very positive energy about her - a kind of fighting energy about her. She won't be trodden on, I think that's what you feel, even though there's a lot of forces behind her like her father, who probably doesn't mean to squash her but does, and the community itself and the surroundings that she grows up in, they could squash a smaller character.

Interviewer
Do you think one of the reasons that those forces are there is partly because she is so strong and feisty? Do they react to that in a way?

Cora Bisset
Maybe so. I think it is a human nature thing still that in any kind of group you find yourself in, that sometimes a stronger personality becomes quashed, maybe through other people's insecurity or fear of what that reflects in themselves. Sometimes people don't like to see one of the fish jumping out the pond or something bigger breaking out from the barriers they've erected. So yeah, I think maybe it is a human nature thing as well too, if you have got a kind of spark in you, and you're being compressed you find it harder [to accept that strength in other people].

Interviewer
Yes, so there are two ways in which it happens. The oppression makes her fight but also in a way perhaps because she's picked out as somebody who is part of the change - she's almost the first person to change within the group isn't she - maybe that encourages people like her father and so on to press down on her a bit more. The business of her education for example: he can see that there is something in her that there isn't in Will, so he encourages her to educate herself in some ways.

Cora Bisset
Yes.

Interviewer
I'm jumping ahead maybe but one of the things that it seems to me that you do with the character is that you're actually a very modern Chris. Did you do that deliberately?

Cora Bisset
It's funny. Me and my Mum were talking about this actually because she's just been reading the reviews and she's trying to imagine me in the part, and then I was reading an interview that came out in the Scotsman I think with I think Vivien Heilbron [who played the role of Chris in the television adaptation]

Interviewer
Oh yes.

Cora Bisset
And then from the photo and from the way she describes the way she's played the character - I didn't see that production but I think it was probably slightly more - not subdued - but more, perhaps calm. I'm not sure but that was the impression I got. I think maybe there have been so many more strong female role models since the writing of that book which I think was perhaps an unconscious precursor to strong female characters. I think - it wasn't really conscious but it just felt natural - in fact, I was trying to convey a sort of strong, feisty character, but then I'm just playing what feels to me what a girl in that predicament would do. Probably with the knowledge of my own life .... if that makes sense.

Interviewer
Yes, that makes absolute sense. I think it's right because that seems to be one of the things that we do in the play. A lot of young people find the book quite difficult to get into, and I think the production makes it quite possible for them to put themselves in her shoes or whatever, it makes a lot of sense to them.

Cora Bisset
Because I think if she couldn't speak a word, or she couldn't express that - I don't think girls especially could relate to that because girls are encouraged you know to be, be themselves, definitely.

Interviewer
Did you work a lot on the growth from being young to being old?

Cora Bisset
I tried not to make it clearly delineated steps because the character fluctuates all the time, but I did actually draw myself a little map when I was still trying to get to grips with the journey of the story. And I tried, when I was working through the scripts, initially, even before rehearsal, I tried to just work out when the changes was taking place, significant points that clicked it in one direction, but reflecting back on my own journey from adolescence to adulthood, I think I realised that it's never clear. You know, there's maybe a moment when you feel Ah ha I'm maybe grown up. And then something else reverts - and right through your adult life you know you're a child quite often, I think that goes on through time. So it's not a black and white thing but yes I think there are definitely very significant points that move her on a step.

Interviewer
Can you identify some of those for us?

Cora Bisset
I think the realisation of her Dad's violence and his sexual role - when she realises that it's her Dad that's got her Mum pregnant. I think that's quite a big shock because I think, as we've spoken about, she probably does idolise her father quite a bit, he's the one that supports her in her education and so on. And I think when she realises that it's him that's caused her mother to go through all this pain which is evidently destroying her, I think that's a real wake up call. And also, there's two things going on there: the realisation that not all is rosy in the house, and this sexual thing, you know, it's a current that's ongoing throughout the play. Sometimes it can be a really horrible thing because she's beginning to like this thing that men and women do together but it looks like it ends up really painful and what's going on here, and yet there's something within her instinctively that things that's not all there can be to it. So I think that's one point, realising her mother's fear, you know when her mother dies. When her mother dies is another significant point, that's a stage for her to realise that she's not just a child in the house, she's going to replace her mother in some ways.

Interviewer
Yeah and she talks about putting her childhood away, her

chance to get an education and so on...

Cora Bisset
Yeah, yeah, so she realises that every road isn't 'set fair with warning posts' ... and that you can't just go out and play for ever, that not the way it's going to be actually. And there's responsibilities that come with - there are things you don't want to have to deal with that come into your life. Will leaving is another moment when responsibility is thrust on her, because she's left to deal with her father on her own, to deal with a man on her own, and to deal with sex. So I guess each step on the way is bringing more responsibility to her and more confrontation with things that she's very curious about but she could also be very ignorant of. But I think she deals with each as it comes along and as she confronts it she takes it on and wins.

Interviewer
Another important point is when she feels attracted to the tinker, the tink, isn't it? Because a man seems to be different because you've just said she had responsibility placed upon her when her mother dies and when Will leaves and so on, but actually when the tink is there she makes the move doesn't she? She wants, she fancies him, she likes the idea of him, she may not quite understand what she is liking but she quite likes the idea and that's something in her rather than something that's been put on to her.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes. Again, there's some recurrence of the sexual awakening that's going on in her I suppose and through the song she reflects - "I could really...I'm really attracted to this and I know there's something a little bit dark about it" - she can see a kind of dark side but that darkness can be quite attractive in itself as well. She's not so frightened of it, she's definitely not part of that small town mentality that hides such things, she wants to blow the thing open and find out what's all this about.

Interviewer
Any other important moments? Any in the second half?

Cora Bisset
Yeah, most definitely when the second half opens and she has her entire - her father's entire estate and all his money, that was a huge decision for her. The decision seems to be made very quickly but I guess we have condensed the process. But that is a huge opening of the options there, the whole swithering of the whole first act has come to a point where she can go off and do what she's always wanted to do, and then we're taken off into the other route where she meets Ewan and she very succinctly puts it - 'I really want this guy'. Whether or not she actually meant marriage at that point or not I don't know but she knows her mind, she knows her heart, and that's her first big love, so that's another important point. The marriage itself of course...

Interviewer
Yes, that's a continuation of it isn't it? Though it is a bit of a growing up because people talk to you, talk to her in a different way ...

Cora Bisset
Yes. The actual change has probably taken place just before that. And the birth of her first child, that was another huge step I think - when she realises she's pregnant at first. She resents Ewan and I think that's one of the most insightful points that Lewis Grassic Gibbon has touched on with regards to a kind of female mentality actually because that's where she realises that she's pregnant and she resents him. But it's not rational, it's not rational, but then ...

Interviewer
In some ways he's done it to her but ...

Cora Bisset
... and he'd not have to carry it ...

Interviewer
... it's an eternal story ...

Cora Bisset
... it's too tangled ... but you can understand that ... and there's a little childishness in that as well. "I'm going to have to carry this baby and you're still out there doing what you've always done but I'm not going to be doing that." But then the love that Ewan gives her at that point I think takes her into another stage again where she actually really enters into the whole domestic role with quite a passion, and again it's something we spoke about. I was kind of uncomfortable with that. At first I thought "Would she lose all those other dreams and drives just like that and suddenly become totally content with that?" But perhaps at a stage in your life I think you do. It won't remain like that but ...

Interviewer
It could almost be chemical couldn't it, that's the thing you need to do as a mother?

Cora Bisset
Yes, your whole body needs to be protective and take a joy in that. Because you know you've done a job well. So that's another big change again. All that fluctuating between the two worlds and two Chrisses has come to a little plateau there, a little time of calm, where there's real contentment, probably for the first time in her life.

Interviewer
And the last moment it seems to me is where she understands that Ewan has gone and she lets him go. She grows up there doesn't she?

Cora Bisset
Yes, that's a huge one, yeah. I think that moment when he comes home, probably the old feistiness of her where she will not be trampled, she will not... Like when her father is kind of preying on her [in the first half], you know she always wills him to die. I think there is an absolute self-preservation in her which is fundamental about Chris and ... Yes, she will give and she is a very open and generous and adoring character and there's a period where she just - her life is Ewan and the child but when that switches and he has taken from her what he is not allowed to take, she shuts down - 'You will not, you will not...'. And it's very hard and it's very cold and it's very final. You know, there's no question. I think she's incredibly self preserving.

Interviewer
And then, the one I meant, I agree with all that, the one I actually meant was when she speaks to Ewan's ghost and lets him go, having understood what he's done and forgiven him really for that horror ...

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes.

Interviewer
... that seems to be a point where she really grows up into an adult because one of the things about being an adult as opposed to being a child is forgiving, I suppose, isn't it, and realising its not only you, it's other people in the world as well.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes.

Interviewer
She changes a lot then it seems to me.

Cora Bisset
She does. I guess there's a bigger picture coming out in the play. It's like the play is a kind of river and it's gone into a big sea at that point. She, well, we as the audience I think as well, realise that there were many factors affecting Ewan's behaviour, i.e. the war, and other effects it had on him. It wasn't just about one person turning into a brute for no reason. And I think she's realised that by this point, that what he went through you know, was very much linked to [his behaviour when he came back] , and people aren't always responsible for their actions. Yeah, that's an important moment.

Interviewer
How do you do acting?

Cora Bisset
I don't think I've got a hard and fast way. I think it totally depends.

Interviewer
How did you do this show?

Cora Bisset
Well, first of all I read the book numerous times, just to get a feel of the story and the journey of it and what Alastair [the adaptor] had chosen to include and why. To try to get that in my head. And then I worked through the script and, yeah, looked for the most significant events. And then I don't know what anybody else does but the ones that really jumped out at me, the ones that really I could get my teeth into, specifically. I tried to relate them to things that I'd experienced, perhaps not in obvious terms but just emotions that I could pinpoint - that I thought 'Yeah I've been through something similar to that' - in a very different context, in a very different time. And then I just thought through that and thought through how I reacted in that scenario and did I react in a similar way to Chris In many occasions I found I did actually find a lot of similarities and I just tried to hook back into those moments actually and just thought about it for a long time. And I didn't sit at home preparing how I would act that part but I thought about the mental processes which Chris must have gone through to reach the point she next gets to.

Interviewer
I'm interested in that because how can you, 21st century girl, understand or even relate anything that's in your life to the experience that Chris goes through towards the end when she is mauled by the brutal husband and left alone working the fields, loses her husband in the war? I always think this is very interesting when actors say that they've mined their own experiences because it goes beyond them. Interesting plays go beyond our own ordinary experiences - they're about the really dramatic times in people who have dreadful or wonderful or exciting lives. How did you find that?

Cora Bisset
For the - I suppose - for parts of those times, I'd take the kernel of something, of an experience. Like for instance when Ewan comes back, I thought of a horrible time where, not that scenario exactly, but where I felt completely, completely rejected by someone in the sexual sense, or someone was touching me with no consideration whatsoever and I could really experience that. Yeah, the big events obviously, I haven't a husband who's died at war but I've people who've left my life unexplained. So I take that but I just had to try and - you just have to try and imagine ... with your imaginary skills and take what you've read from the book and what you've read around that ....

Interviewer
Do you use the language of the play, the language of the book? Does that - I mean I have the theory that good writing takes us to places that we can't go, we've not been before. It takes us to new places. And it may be something about the rhythm of the language or the rhythm of the piece in some way - I think quite often it's to do with rhythm ... Does that make sense to you?

Cora Bisset
Yeah, yeah it does. Definitely, having read the book a number of times that had built up a very powerful picture in my head already of the loss she feels at that time. The play, because [Chris and me the actor go through] such a journey - you know, you've had these wonderful moments of joy and it's obvious, it's when joy is reflected with a tragic event that it's all the more jarring. And you've had this journey and felt like a woman and been through this marriage and you've seen this joy and the richness that came from that, that all that's taken you somewhere. And then it happens quite quickly the disappearance and the homecoming scene, you know, it's quite snappy, so you are kind of jolted out of that and even when you're acting that there's a little sense of "Oh! all the happy stuff's gone now!" So yeah, I guess the play kind of carries you along in that way.

Interviewer
And it's interesting that moment that you have of pleasure with Rob, sandwiched between dark bits, between the return of Ewan and then hearing about Ewan's death. It's important isn't it - it gets you to another peak to let you fall into another trough - an even deeper trough because that peak has taken you perhaps further up than you expected.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes.

Interviewer
It does seem to be the rhythm of that, as I say, the structure of the play helps you there, like a roller coaster isn't it?

Cora Bisset
And again the play is very much condensed from the book because there is just so much to tell in the story, it gets you there quite quickly.

Interviewer
Just by way of contrast, can you tell me how this differs to doing another play, another show? In terms of your approach to acting.

Cora Bisset
The last couple of shows I've done were disjointed in a sense, they didn't have a character that ran all the way through. They were either sort of ... mosaic, but not mosaic ... they were kind of more of a jigsaw - snapping in and out of characters very quickly - more stylised and not so realistic. So I think in this one you really did the shape of someone's sort of mental and emotional journey... and the shape of the story itself, was uppermost rather than the stylistic considerations. I found this more emotionally draining.

Interviewer
You said it was realistic. In what way was it realistic or naturalistic or whatever?

Cora Bisset
It's funny that because we'd been up in Arbuthnott and this farmer came up to us afterwards. I couldn't make out what he was saying half the time but he came up and said "Och, it was great .... totally real ..." It's funny, because you see it in Cumbernauld and it's not going to be realistic as such but the human emotions are going to be basically similar.

Interviewer
Well I think it's interesting because I don't think it is a particularly realistic production. Not a naturalistic production. I think it's quite true, I think the emotions, it seems to me, I hope they are true which I think is what we are aiming at, but ...

Cora Bisset
No that's what I mean, I meant the actual relationships between people are, well, yes they're real and they're true but of course you've got people slipping in and out of lots of characters so it's not - it can be naturalistic - and a lot of the staging and what not is quite - it is gently stylised, but ...

Interviewer
I think I'm getting the picture of what you mean. The other show that I've seen you in it was story-telling really wasn't it?

Cora Bisset
It was, yes yes.

Interviewer
And there wasn't much relationship material between people.

Cora Bisset
No.

Interviewer
And I can see that in a way this is more naturalistic in terms of the relationships if not in terms of the pictures or whatever.

Cora Bisset
The one before treated you more like a MTV video, snapshots of emotions - it was very, you know, they were hanging in the air, splashes of paint.

Interviewer
And this comes somewhere between that and kitchen sink drama does it?

Cora Bisset
Yes, no, it's not kitchen sink, not at all, but it has the journeys.

Interviewer
Were there any particular challenges to this play that made it difficult? Or things you had to overcome, things you worried about?

Cora Bisset
Getting that kind of fluctuating state of mind. Because she changed her mind the whole time. I found that quite difficult to get my own head round - how one woman could be so into "I'm going to go off and do this" and the next minute "Oh God, it's all worth nothing". And it just - switched, switched, switched the whole time. And I think it is realistic, I think, we do go through these kinds of stages. But it was quite hard to find the triggers. In one way there's lots of triggers there for you but just to use them, just to know what to use just to trigger you off.

Interviewer
It's about accuracy as well isn't it? It's knowing precisely when on which line or which word or which glance or which movement it changes, particularly when the play goes so fast.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes. Absolutely. She's not - although she's swithering, she's not a flighty kind of character - there is something very rooted about her. She's not just a kind of airy-fairy dreamer, it's not that.

Interviewer
She's a bit pulled in each direction isn't she?

Cora Bisset
Yes, that's right. That's right.

Interviewer
I remember us working quite hard on things like the moment when she runs up the hill and then changes - she's all fed up with her Dad and then she looks and sees the sunset and she suddenly feels different. And also the moment when she's upset with Marget - suddenly she becomes upset because Margaret is talking about death and she conceives of death for the first time. They are quite quick turns aren't they?

Cora Bisset
Yes, definitely. But I think it is there in the writing. The triggers are there to send you off in the right way.

Interviewer
It seems to me that's the important thing for all good acting is being really accurate about where the turns take place.

Cora Bisset
Absolutely.

Interviewer
And the good writers, I'm thinking particularly of Brecht and Shakespeare, are very very accurate in where the thought changes. You have to think quite quickly.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes, that's right. Yeah, you can't just sort of delve into a kind of general ...

Interviewer
Yes, generalised acting is not good.

Cora Bisset
No, it's not going to make a very good production.

Interviewer
Moving on to some gender issues, do you think the female characters are complex and real and rounded, or are they stereotypical?

Cora Bisset
No, I think they're very real. I mean - I'll speak for Chris. Yeah, I was surprised when I first read the book - I know it's been a comment for years you know how Gibbon's tapped women's psyche but I think he has done it very well. I think he's got both sides because I think a lot of female heroine characters are kind of fashionable, of this day and age, have adopted certain aggressive tendencies, of males, which I don't necessarily see as terribly positive qualities. You know, there's strength but I don't find aggression is particularly good, there's strength without aggressive. And I think what he's developed is a big wholly woman character. I think that there's a power and an independence and an independent mindedness and an actual, probably a kind of physical strength, there's a life force about her. But there's also something very maternal and loving and providing about her as well. She's not just out for her own trip, you know, there something nourishing about her as well, I think. And sometimes those qualities can be really hard. You know there's this constant battle for career women who obviously want a family but it's damned hard to do both. It's damned hard to combine those roles because they require different states of mind. In one you have to have some kind of killer instinct ...and the homing instinct is a completely different headstate, I think. There's got to be more self sacrificing. So, I think although this is a very different era, those instincts are still there, there's a survival, she's not subservient but she gives herself to serve her family and her man

Interviewer
And doesn't see it as a bad thing...

Cora Bisset
And doesn't see it as a bad thing ...

Interviewer
... which I think is the key ...

Cora Bisset
... yeah yeah yeah.

Interviewer
We talked about stereotypes from the actor thinking of the character. Do you think Chris is forced into a stereotypical role? Do you think other people have - in the play, other characters - do they have a stereotypical view and is there a way that they think women ought to be, if you like?

Cora Bisset
Well, the kind of attitude represented by the Speak - and it was in the play as it was in the book I think - we mock, we mock the Speak, we think of that as being pretty small minded. You know, there was all the harvest madness, when they're joking about it, people fornicating left, right and centre - and of course everybody was just up to their eyeballs with it because everybody is doing it, everybody's talking about everybody else doing it, and yet everybody else sort of talks about it shamefully like ...

Interviewer
And we made it the same people doing it who are talking about it.

Cora Bisset
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, so that kind of turns it on its head - very clever! - So yeah, there is that ever present notion that women shouldn't be doing this - and men - I don't think it's necessarily women actually. I think there's this terribly sort of presbyterian attitude to it all - but, I think within - I mean you've got characters - yeah, and certainly within the home there's Guthrie who is absolutely tormented by his own guilt and his sexual acts and things and that probably acts upon Chris as well. Like the time when she was chased by the daftie and he is mortified to ask her what happened ...

Interviewer
I was going to ask that. Does Guthrie have a stereotypical view of women, do you think?

Cora Bisset
Well he can't really because he's really encouraging her to be not what her mother is. And I think there's something that we spoke about before, there's probably tension between him and Jean because she's probably more of the land - he's of the land as well but she - she's probably more of a, more wants Chris to just grow up, and keep house, and marry, and live like she has. But Chris is going to go beyond what Jean has done, or could, and he's always fighting Jean on that issue.

Interviewer
He demands of Chris that she look after the house when Jean dies but it seems to me that it's not a stereotypical position. He requires that because that is what has to be done. And admittedly that is the normal role of the women. But everybody is working on that farm - Will, Chris and Guthrie.

Cora Bisset
Well, see, I'm not so sure about that - reading that book - The Ballad and the Plough. The woman's work was just as hard - sometimes they did more things concerned with the kitchen - but a lot of that was very physical hard work as well -- churning, and all of this kind of thing. But they mucked in at harvest time and so I - I'm probably not speaking from great knowledge of this here - but I think that it was probably even. Perhaps that would have been seen to be more of a stage of a kind of equality. I think maybe things came later, in the industrial revolution or maybe during the war or whatever when a different hierarchy took over the place actually.

Interviewer
Yes, I think they all work ...

Cora Bisset
They all mucked in ... and they all ...

Interviewer
... because it was a very hard life wasn't it? And they all worked hard.

Cora Bisset
I know. It's funny how, actually even in our play, that everybody, it's all hands on board to get the set up and everything, you know, I think there's a parallel. But all the guys have ended up doing the heavier work but by sheer practicality - they can lift it faster, they can do it quicker, and we're better doing all the fiddly little bits and getting all the things sorted which men tend to forget. They'll leave something out! And I was chuckling one day because I thought - this is actually a perfect representation of the play. There's not a negative hierarchy that anyone has stated here - it has just fallen into the best structure -

Interviewer
Whether that is best or whether it is just the one that you're forced into

Cora Bisset
Well, certainly no one will stop me helping me if I want to go and batter nails into a thing but actually I'm happier sorting out the other side of things.

(Laughter)

Interviewer
Interesting isn't it?

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes. I wonder about stereotyping, I'm not sure, I think there might have been ... Och .... I certainly ... I'm not sure, I'm not sure.

Interviewer
Well I think I would say that I don't Guthrie has a particular view of how things should be. He may have a view of certain responsibilities - "You'll have the children that I want to have!" or "That God sends us" or whatever, but that applies as much to him as to her, as to Jean, doesn't it?

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes.

Interviewer
When he says Chris has got to work, it seems to me that it's not that he has a particular view of what women do, it's just that Chris has to work. It has to be done, you're the person who's here to do it, go and do it.

Cora Bisset
No, I think you're right. I think he has a very fundamental view of just what men and women must do together to provide a secure home but it's not one above the other ... Although, I mean, I think he does rule the roost.

Interviewer
I'm thinking he mostly rules the roost but it's not in a stereotypical way. It's because that's who he is, it seems to me, that's his character. Because I think you're right, he is trying to get Chris out of that traditional stereotyped woman by educating her; he wants her to be a teacher; I think he probably can't see beyond a teacher. He doesn't have any idea of what a woman could do beyond that. But he wants to get her out of a certain situation anyway. And he's educating her more than Will is for example.

Cora Bisset
Will is quite sidelined in a way...

Interviewer
We talked a little bit didn't we about how Chris's experiences relate to the life of modern women? Is there anything else you want to say?

Cora Bisset
Something I find quite interesting actually is when she does decide to go back to the farm. She has - the world's her oyster really in a way, she has all the money, all the potential to do whatever she wants, and she goes back to this farm, and we understand that as being because she is just a fundamental part of the land and that's in her blood and she realises that. But there's something that correlates quite closely I think with a modern woman, in that I think there's almost a pressure - we've come so far down the road of feminism that there's almost a pressure on young women growing up to do exceptionally successfully. And I think there are a lot of women ...

Interviewer
... who would actually take that choice?

Cora Bisset
... who would absolutely take that choice and be very happy with it, but it's almost not respected. I know that's an ongoing kind of battle and even you know laws that are coming in just now to like to give paternal time off, and the likes. I think we're trying to readdress that balance and see the home as being a job in itself and seeing child-rearing as being a very viable, respectable way to spend your time. It's okay, you know.

Cora Bisset
I find that quite interesting. It's almost like Chris can see a year ahead and thinks "I don't want to go and be stressed out and be a teacher and ..." - I don't know. You know, that's modern times I suppose; my Mum did 30 years of teaching and she's happiest she's every been, out of the game now, doing her gardening. But, yes, I find that quite interesting that she has the strength to recognise that that's actually what's going to make her content.

Interviewer
Why put this play on now? Is it current?

Cora Bisset
Yes, I think it is. I think it has very universal themes. I don't think it's a particularly - even though it's evidently a Scottish play in the language we're using and the accents we're using and the land that it's set in - Scottish play. I think the themes of change and people either welcoming or fighting that change is an ongoing concern and question and matter of interest, and especially in Scotland right now. But I think, I wonder, I wonder how this play would go down outwith Scotland actually. That would be interesting to see. Obviously, I mean, from the audiences we get in, it's a story very close to people's hearts. Above all those themes it is an excellent story and people will always love a wonderful story that has touched them. Not in a sentimental way, but there seems to be something just at its core that touches on a lot of human experiences in a short period of time. I mean, it goes through a tremendous amount really. It's a cracking story. I think it's just that that people relate to. But if you want to delve deeper than that then there are huge political and sociological relevant matters going on there - that are just timeless, just timeless like any classic.

Interviewer
Yes, yes. Let's talk about that idea of change. What do you understand by - what do you think Lewis Grassick Gibbon was saying about change?

Cora Bisset
I think he's saying that it is inevitable that since time has begun the world is always in a process of flux. Whether that be cyclical or ongoing I'm not sure, but things will always change. Nothing - you know, you don't, our bodies every second of every minute of every day are changing, you know, nothing is ever standing still. And you cannot, no matter how hard you try, you cannot maintain a status quo; it's just impossible, though I think many people, even in, you know, no matter how wise and sophisticated we think we're getting people still try to do it. You know, the old story of trying to build up your house and your car and your all and try just to erect this solid entity that is yours and is there. But we all know that could disappear like that in any second and we still - people still... It's kind of daft, I mean it's silly, we still try to erect these little 'tombs' of security which are an illusion, you know. That's on a very microcosmic scale, but the world's constantly changing, your country's constantly changing, your family's constantly changing, your relationships are constantly changing, and I think maybe what he's saying is that people have to embrace that and learn to develop with it rather than fight it. I don't think he's saying just go with whatever comes along and get on any trip that seems to be happening - there are sort of constants that can run through your life and it's good to know and learn what those constants are and learn what you believe in but then that's always changing as well...

Interviewer
But there are constants aren't there? Chris learns that the land and her connection with it is a constant.

Chris Bisset

Yes.

Interviewer
And actually even when she thinks she can leave, she realises that she can't; there is suddenly something that goes beyond the smaller changes - the £300 and the fact that she can go and do anything she wanted is not enough. There is a stronger connection. And indeed people like Ewan are temporary, her father is temporary, you know, those people come and go. And she is a constant isn't she? I think that one of the things that I get from it is that Chris Guthrie is thoroughly there - there is a solid heart to her that no matter what happens, somehow all remains the same. And that's very connected to the land. She finds her strength there. So she might get buffeted about by the winds and the waves and what have you but - and she might find herself in a completely different place - but there is still some part of her that is secure and solid. It seems to me that she grows confident in that. That's one of her growing up things. She learns to value what she knows. It's quite a difficult concept isn't it?

Chris Bisset

The idea that everything changes.

Interviewer
Yes .... working out precisely what he's saying about it ...

Chris Bisset

Yes, I think, yeah, because sometimes it could seem that he's saying that you could take very literally and think that you know only the oldest and most ancient things are worth anything, you know, like literally the land. But for most of us city-dwellers, whatever, that's not actually an essential part of our life; we may love it, and a lot of us do love getting away into the countryside. But literally speaking our life is within the concrete jungle, you know? But I think what we can take from that is that there is probably something in the core of each of us that we know to be true whether it's something that's set in our childhood or some aspect of ourselves or maybe it's a place but maybe it's just an essence that we just know is essential...

Interviewer
A way of being ...

Chris Bisset

A way of being, yes, that we can never ignore, and that will differ from person to person, but I think everyone has something that is their land if you like.

Interviewer
Just a completely different question from yesterday. How do you see this fitting into Scottish theatre - this play and this production?

Cora Bisset
I think there's room for many different things in Scottish theatre, in British theatre, in the world. And I've very much more come round to the opinion of - I think it's great that classics are done - and particularly Scottish classics - because there is obviously support for them. More than any other play I've done, this has had audiences you know like I've ever experienced, so there is obviously a demand for it and a keenness for it.

So, I think there is definitely a place for it. I wholeheartedly say that. I think, yes, just like there's room for experimental, there's room for physical, there's room for Shakespeare, there's room for plays like this, done in this way, with no other need to kind of justify itself beyond that. I think ....

Interviewer
Do you see it as fitting into any sort of tradition, or any pattern?

Cora Bisset
No, I don't think so. I think it's quite a nice merging of various styles actually. I think it's like we were saying yesterday, it's not absolutely, it's not naturalistic; the way that the characters are played, they're played very honestly. There's those real connections but there's certain stylisations which I think work very much with the storytelling aspect of it and mixtures of conventions such as the kind of narration and dipping in and out of characters and I don't think it owes to anybody, I think it's its own amalgamation of things - quite a nice mixture of things.

Interviewer
I'm very aware that we are following in the footsteps to some extent of 7-84 and their great tours of the country with the Cheviot and the Stag and the Black Black Oil and so on. Are you aware of that as a younger actor?

Cora Bisset
It's something that we touched upon in my own training. You know, we sort of did a certain amount of history. Yes, I know what they did and I know that that was a big breakthrough at the time they did it. And no-one before them had really attempted to cover that sort of ground. And that was a fantastic thing to do at the time. I think touring now is much more commonplace for most companies. But not quite as... I think we're going into little areas that get missed out. In the big areas there's a kind of established touring ...

Interviewer
And a wide variety as well.

Cora Bisset
And a wide variety. Yes. Because we're going to bigger and smaller places all the time, yes. And I think the challenge for the actor is to keep switching between bigger and smaller stages on the course of the same tour - that's a good thing to do.

Interviewer
Well does the nature of the tour that we're doing - did that have an affect on the way you worked on the play?

Cora Bisset
To be honest, no I don't think so. If anything, I just thought of it as just for ....

Interviewer
... a play ...

Cora Bisset
.... a play, yeah, I don't think I was thinking of that at that point. But if anything I think if when you - you have to adapt to each audience and each space and each size and how intimate you'll be with an audience and personally I actually really like performing in small places. I like being able to eye contact people, especially when you get a chance in this play where there isn't a fourth wall a lot of time, where you are directly talking to people, and then it becomes very personal and I really relish that. So I enjoy the change. Because in the bigger theatres you can't see them so there's not a practicality that determines your convention in a sense, even if you know you're sort of acting, that you're sort of talking to them, but in places like this you really are, you know, just ....

Interviewer
We're in Strathaven today (a tiny venue - Ed).

Interviewer
And just in terms of style and so on, do you think 7-84 has had an effect on you or on this production.

Cora Bisset
It's probably something that - it's one of these things that I'm probably not actually aware of it but like anything, people who have ....

Interviewer
.... fed in

Cora Bisset
Yes. It's fed-in; I'm sure that what they have done has gone into my training and into theatre styles that I see around me now so it would be I think be very ignorant of me to not credit that because I'm sure it has fed into just what surrounds my culture at this moment in time, but I'm probably not actually aware of it because I've not actually seen a lot of 7-84 productions and certainly not at the height of what they were doing ....

Interviewer
Well, the company has changed very greatly.

Cora Bisset
Yes changed hugely in, yeah.

Interviewer
The other show that I've seen you in, was Red which was another tour of very different places and of a very different sort of play. Are there any comparisons or similarities to make between this event and that?

Cora Bisset
There is actually. I mean stylistically and material-wise they're very different shows. But the direct contact which, like we discussed yesterday was similar.... Red was quite a story telling format really. It was under the guise of being terribly experimental but actually it was using very very basic techniques. I don't think it was much more radical than this is really. It just kind of looked trendier. And we had mikes on. But actually you were using the exact same performing skills.

Interviewer
Right.

Cora Bisset
And, yeah, there's similarities in that we were telling snatches of stories there and giving it very much to an audience directly like I'm talking to you right now. Only in this one, I'm doing that within a character whereas there it was almost just Cora telling a story. I was an anonymous person, I was anybody. So, they're not a million miles apart actually and this is kind of Chris but sometimes it's a little bit of Cora telling Chris, Cora working through - it's a little bit Brechtian, it's kind of like ....

Interviewer
Yes, yes. Well I think I've spoken to you before about the way I cast. I want the Cora and Chris combined in some ways. I'm not interested in just Chris or just Cora. I think the combination makes more than the sum of the parts.

Cora Bisset
Right.

Interviewer
And I think that's in a way what you're saying because I want your take on Chris otherwise it could just be anybody who was there and I cast you to get your particular view of Chris, rather than somebody else's. I thought your view would be interesting, that's what's casting is about.

Cora Bisset
Right, yeah, rather than going exactly what you think that Chris should be.

Interviewer
Do you think you're a method actor?

Cora Bisset
I think the term 'method' is bandied about with half an understanding. I think it's one of these terms that is almost jokingly referred to and probably no one actually really - I think a lot of us really don't understand what's involved when you say that. My own understanding of it is that it is the extreme form of almost absolutely becoming a character through the method of Stanislavsky, the method of, you know, working up from every bit of their history, every bit of their psyche, to the point where you actually believe you're that person on stage. To that extent No, I don't believe that I am Chris Guthrie on stage. I try very hard to create that world for myself and all the time I try to stay within the mindset as far as I possible can, but for every second I'm up there I know I'm Cora Bisset playing Chris Guthrie.

Interviewer
The only reason I ask you is that yesterday you did something completely new on stage that we'd never seen before. It was great, it worked very well, it seemed to be right for the moment and the response that it created in the rest of the company was right as well. And when you explained that you said it felt right at that time. And who does it feel right for? Can you explain that?

Cora Bisset
That is a strange one actually. Yeah, that is a strange one. Ah, I probably am just going to contradict myself here slightly.

Yes, yes. I try very hard - to use another very bandied about term - but I try very very hard to be in the present all the time. I really try to do that because I can see it in other actors and you know - I'm talking about the past here, not referring to anybody in this show - you can see when their eyes aren't alive to that actual moment, you can see when they're not picking up on a tiny little fluctuation in something. You're giving them something different and if they're not reacting to it in some way you know that they're just - they're 'acting'. So something I try very hard to do is actually think fresh every time What am I thinking right now ....? What is this character thinking right now ...? And when Chae came back last night - at the moment you just referred to - normally I'm, I sort of almost verbally voice it in my head; I think, I can almost hear myself saying "No way, no way, no way, no, Ewan could not have been a coward and a deserter" and "No, I don't want to believe that, I don't want to believe that", "Oh My God, I'm going to just have - I've got to get away from here because I can't handle, I can't handle you friend right now telling me this". But last night, I looked at him and something new came to me and I heard a different voice in my head going "You f******' w******, don't you dare call my husband a coward, no way". You know, it was a denial, I wasn't believing what he was saying, and it was just - I just felt angry, I didn't preplan it, I just felt an anger that anyone could tell me that news at that moment in time. And so that came out in a slap to poor old Alan.

Interviewer
There's an element of method there isn't there?

Cora Bisset
Yes. I suppose there is. I suppose there is.

Interviewer
But equally there's that thing about being in the moment, which I think is the key thing. That acting is about being in the moment.

Cora Bisset
Yes.

Interviewer
And we talked about that in rehearsal didn't we? I kept on saying during the narration bits, "You've got to keep it present" and for you as well as everybody else, because that is when it came alive.

Cora Bisset
Yes. So, although I guess the method from what I understand of it is an extreme form of technicality in a way, whereas I think what I try to do is constantly keep it actually very centred in my gut the whole time. There's a mixture here - you're half intellectualising, you're half ...

Interviewer
I don't actually think Stanislavsky would have denied any of what you're saying there. I think my understanding of Stanislavsky is that he - particularly towards the end of his life - he grasped that you were always being an actor doing something else; that you can't just go off in the way you - you can't build this complete character that is not you - and I suppose that comes back to what I was saying about casting.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes. Again we probably use certain elements of it that we're not even aware of because things trickle down and you're not aware of the influences you've taken on.

Interviewer
One of the things I always think is that Brecht has had an effect on all modern theatre. (This is not particularly original - Peter Brook said it long before me.) So although we're not aware particularly that we're using Brechtian things, technical styles, whatever, you can't ignore him. I think the same is true of Stanislavsky. It's there. And it's just part of the rich mix that we now have.

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes.

Interviewer
How important is humour in the play?

Cora Bisset
Very important I think. Intrinsically, in the novel and in the play itself I think there's a lot of humour written into it, but I think it's probably very much within the hands of the director and the actors how far they go with that. And I think you've enjoyed playing with the humour, which I'm glad of, I think it's very much there to be played with and contrasted, because there is so much tragedy in the play. I mean awful things are happening the whole time, there's so many milestones of tragic events, I think you have to keep playing the opposite side of that. As we all know, that contrast makes tragedy work I think. And also I think it's very in keeping with the essence of those people. I think any hardy stock of people, you know, it's a survival method isn't it?

Interviewer
And I'm also struck by surgeons telling jokes over the operating theatre table - which is true, I've been there when they do it - And I think people who are working in difficult circumstances tell jokes. They make light of it. I'm sure people did it in the trenches. We laughed a lot in rehearsals - maybe that's why....

Cora Bisset
Yes, yes, which was great ....

Sometimes it's a very black humour but yes, I think it's very important. I think humour is very important. You know, watching live plays now, it takes more effort than being a passive film watcher or TV watcher. You are asking more of an audience and we know it's not as popular... it's not such a mass market - we all know that. And I don't think it's compromising in any way but I think you have to realise when you are asking so much of people that you need to, you need to give them release as well. I think it's really important. And I came out of College - as you do - kind of wanting to do really serious and intense stuff, and I'm sure every graduate does, they think they know it all. And even after a few years I've realised just how important humour is. It brings people close to you and then you can really - you can give them something they're not expecting.

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