Discussion: Tommy Mullins

Discussion with Tommy Mullins, actor playing the part of Will in Sunset Song.

Interviewer
Tommy, tell me how you do acting. What's your approach?

Tommy
My approach? It changes every character I do, depending on what I'm doing and what the character is. For this, first thing I did, because I'm from Aberdeen and thereabouts, was look at the countryside on the way up the roads, soaking up the atmosphere and I went to Arbuthnott Church and soaked up the aroma and the feel of the church.

Interviewer
And did that help? I did the same.

Tommy
Well, I mean I don't go into the part where I'm playing Gibbon and visualise the church because I'm in a complete different place but, no, it was nice to do, walking down the roads in Arbuthnott does have a feel about it, an openness. I was singing, when we were in Arbuthnott, I was singing going down the road, and it felt - because it was so quiet there, there was no one around, I was quite free. I knew nobody was listening to me so I could do that and I think that - and that twigged in my head and I thought that's got, you know, that's why people sing in the fields. You can hear them, but I suppose as you get used to it, people can just be singing whereas in the city, I mean I sing usually going down the street anyway or whistle, but people look at you and think you're mad, well, or you feel that people might think you're mad, but I don't care.

And well, I read, I went into the museum and had a look around that and I was really interested in reading his letters to his army friends about faith; a belief that he could do something worthwhile and make his life worthwhile I suppose, and I loved that quote about love being more than a physical attraction. I mean I suppose I relate my own life to the character's life - like Will in relationships. Like I entered a relationship recently and I used that as, you know, food for the play or what have you. And my relationship with my Mum and my father. You know, I think about times when I was little and my Dad got annoyed with me, you know, making too much noise and he's working away. And I remember saying "I hate you" to my Dad and, you know, or not speaking to him, trying to butter me up when I was younger and, you know, use that in the scenes. Just tap in to something years back.

Interviewer
So would you say that you mine your personal experience for the things ...?

Tommy
Yes definitely. But for a part like Reverend Gibbon it's more of an external part rather than - I mean Will, I'm more being me, and Reverend Gibbon is sort of an illusion.

Interviewer
Yes, so there's two different ways of acting in a way for those two different parts.

Tommy
You start on the internal.

Interviewer
So when you do the external thing, how do you do that? How do you find it?

Tommy
How do I find the external? I don't know. Find a voice, or a sound that I would like to head for and try to .... The more I do it, the more it sets into a register and then you can kick through it at different spaces in your vocal range or what have you, and a structure of body stance and movement that's different from your own. Because obviously you're trying to make the characters different so you're.... Maybe the internal is more... You know, as Will I'm more relaxed and I'm still thinking, you know, I'm farming the fields so I'll be a bit more sturdier than I am but I don't want to stereotype that too much and walk on quite rigid, so.... But with Gibbon, it's less of a real character, but I think that's maybe where the humour comes from more. I mean I suppose Will is more kind of your Stanislavsky-esque kind of thing and Gibbon's slightly more Steptoe maybe!

Interviewer
Were there any particular challenges in this play? Things that were particularly difficult?

Tommy
Challenging. Changing from character to character quite quickly - it took me a wee while to get into that, to feel happy that I'd changed.

Interviewer
That you were defining each one .....

Tommy
Yes. And not slipping, the voice slipping, the register, that seems to have come. You know I'm never fully satisfied but it's better.

Interviewer
Tell us about Will, your main character. Take us through his journey perhaps, if you think there is one.

Tommy
I mean I think in the start, he was younger. In the play, well, I mean I use it in the play, I mean that things were good. I mean he did look up to his father, respect his Dad, and I think he admired his strong ... and how hard he works. But at the same time he hates his dictatorial manner, his you know God-like I am always right, and you know he would love to do things, you know if his Dad just took time to take him out, to go shooting or something, he would love that. I mean that would mean a lot to him but his Dad is so in his own world, you know he's got his farming, he's kind of a workaholic in that sense, I think. So Will has Chris and then, I mean they're obviously very close, and Mother, but as Mother is getting colder. I think Will notices that. I think over the time, I mean it's hard to do in the play because it's so ...

Interviewer
So quick?

Tommy
Yes, I mean if it was just a play about Will, then it would be easier, but no. The way I see it is looking back, as the mother becomes more detached, I think that she goes into a sort of depression really and the paler she gets and the more frightened of having more kids... I think it's her fear of death which I think runs through the whole book, and which is something I'm interested in because I've always been scared of death and that's why I probably live the way I do. But I think Will was interested in travelling, in the Druid thing, you know, to go with Grassic Gibbon's interest in Mexico, in Indians and all that whole diffusionism malarkey.

I think he's on the same plane as his Dad, he's interested in the whole... socially, I mean with his comments in the play about hearing "the penny of penury clink shy-like against the threepenny of affluence", and he thinks that's unfair. And that's why that speech to me is quite beautiful. I mean he may be like myself. I'm not the most intellectually clever of people but I understand beautiful things and can see beauty in things. And the word Jehovah, I can see, being young and not understanding.... I'm slightly dyslexic, not particularly dyslexic but I can see, I can put that on Will quite easily. I mean I can see his Dad going "You know, you're useless, you useless bum", and Chris is always so clever. Because I've got a brother who's a straight A student and so I can relate to that quite closely and easily, and at the same time he wants to prove himself, and I think in going to Argentina he does prove himself more, I mean he ....

Interviewer
He leaves also to get away from his father. You could argue that he hasn't an ambition to go to Argentina or go away but he's just trying to get out.

Tommy
Yeah, he needs to get out, he needs to get away from the, it's not a growing situation for him, it's just hates. I think in finding his love - and it's such a frustrating thing for him because you know he can't support her in the situation that he's in and then she gives him the sort of golden ticket out there, he can support her and ...

Interviewer
Her being ....

Tommy
Molly.

Interviewer
Molly, yes. I always think there are three key scenes between Guthrie and Will. And the scene when first after your mother dies, you stand up to him and say "You should go to the market yourself ......" which is the first time you challenge him in any way.

The second time is when he wants to work late at night and you say "Away, I'm off to Drumlithie ......".

And then the third time is when he says "Have you got this tink, Molly Douglas, with a bairn?"

Tommy
I think there comes a time in your life when you're not scared of your Dad. I mean in relation to myself, you know, I now, quite recently, over the past few years, stood up to my Dad more and said "No, that's wrong, I disagree with you". And he'll get defensive or what have you, you know and then I'll hit him with what I figure and then my Mum... Like in one instance in particular my Mum supported me, just by saying, you know, a line but I felt that she knew - there are some things that are unspoken in families, but if you bring them to light, it can be difficult, you know, anyone takes slander harshly you know. And I mean Will's right about his father but that's probably - I mean probably deep down he knows that and he might have gone into the fields and he'll think "Oh ..." But I suppose Will has to do that because it is such an extreme emotion that he's ..., and he blames his Dad for his mother's death. I mean he's like 'Well I'm no longer standing up for the way you treat Dod and Alec and beating and things like that and that's not going to happen and ....' But he at the same time can't beat him because he needs to work with his father otherwise he's out on the streets.

Interviewer
Yes, a difficult situation isn't it?

Tommy
Yes, but he's very close to his tether. I mean when he says 'Take care', I mean I think he probably did contemplate killing his father, and that possibility is there, I mean he could snap at any moment I think sometimes.

Interviewer
Another important scene for me is when you leave after the scene in Hogmanay. And it always seems to me that you desert Chris in a way. Is that right? Do you feel it's a desertion, is it a betrayal?

Tommy
No. He has to, it's something he has to do, I mean he has to. Everyone at the end of the day has to do their own thing, no one can help you make the ..... at the end of the day you're on yourself, you're in your own head.

Interviewer
A bit like Jean said .... 'No one can stand ....'

Tommy
'No one can stand and help you' and at the end of the day you have to go with what you feel is right and in the end it is all right for Chris. I mean she does make her own life and go her own way, and although it is quite tragic that Ewan passes, you know gets killed... No, you have to, I mean you're selfish at the end of the day, I suppose everyone is ultimately thinking Me, but I mean he does make the effort and he does speak to her but he's worrying about, like, 'How much is Chris going to say to my father?' If Chris lets a word slip, even, can't let too much out the bag before he leaves... But he sends her letters; it's not as if he's abandoning her; he still loves her dearly and there's a deep rooted connection there and he comes back to see her in the book yeah, but no, he doesn't desert her, she'll always be in his heart.

Interviewer
Does the play seem current? Why do you think the production of Sunset Song should go on tour in 2001?

Tommy
Current? It's about families I suppose and you've got the whole sort of social side of things and religion with ... And for a guy who wasn't religious I found it a deeply spiritual book, and to me it moved me immensely and you know I wasn't around in them days - but I do think definitely current. You can draw a lot of things from the way families work from it.

Interviewer
Families seem quite important to you, you've spoken about them a lot. Do you think the way it draws a picture of family relationships and how they sound is true? Is it real?

Tommy
Yeah. I think the whole Freudian incest thing is in us all. The more I enter into relationships the more I realise how you do ... I mean that intense love, it is a kind of replacement for your mother when you were younger; it's bizarre, someone to take care of you... And I suppose Chris moved into that position with her father when Will leaves, and that's why he's like "You've got to get out, get away". Yeah, because problems start in a family and then breed out, you know what I mean, so if your family situation is good and solid and you've got an understanding with your own parents then the kids will obviously be better for that, kids will pick up on that and therefore ...

Interviewer
Do the male or female relationships in the play strike you as real?

Tommy
Relationships. Yeah, I find it all very real. I mean - from being brought up in Aberdeen .... yeah, it's real.

Interviewer
It's not a realistic production. When I ask you that question, do you think those relationships are real, what does that mean, and when you say Yes, they are real?

Tommy
I suppose I'm thinking more in terms of the book but I should ....

Interviewer
Think about the play more. I'm not sure I can answer this question myself, what does 'real' mean in terms of a play? The relationships within the play? How do you think we made them real, how do you think the playwright and we in rehearsal made them real?

Tommy
Being open to each other and you know trying to find the emotional connection which is an illusion, because we're actors, making illusions, to pretend we're real but we're not.

Interviewer
Let's just look at it. The relationship between you, between Will and Chris for example; as you say, you're not brother and sister but you perform as if you were. And there is a truth it seems to me about that relationship. I'm interested in how we work to create that truth. Do you have any ideas about how that happens?

Tommy
Well, I mean, Cora's really easy to create a relationship with on stage because she's a very open actress....

Interviewer
What do you mean by "she's a very open actress"? What does that, what result does that have for, what effect does that have?

Tommy
Well, I mean, it's being open to change in your intonation and your pattern of voice, if you try something new, if you hold her a new way or if you shove her away or what have you - open to changing the whole scene....

Interviewer
So its reaction ... You respond to ....

Tommy
Yes, I suppose reality, I mean, as real as you get on stage is when things happen spontaneously and you're not going through a pattern of intonation that you've done a hundred times before. And that's what every good actor should be striving for really, spontaneity.

Interviewer
And could you explain how you seek to arrive at, or how we sought to arrive at that in rehearsal?

Tommy
Seek to arrive at that spontaneity?

Interviewer
Why is it that in this play I don't think there is much fixed pattern of response but often I think there is?

Tommy
What, in plays in general you mean?

Interviewer
Yes.

Tommy
It really just depends, I think it depends on your actors... I mean if you've got people who have their method of acting, and that is the way they do it, and they won't ever think that to be the same every night... then it's going to be - you know they might have a good solid foundation but there's never going to be anything particularly special, happening moments, magic.

Interviewer
So the rehearsal process in a way is preparing you for ....

Tommy
I suppose it's giving you a base, it's a foundation and you know when a show's, if it's a bad night say, it's not going to be, it's going to be at a base level, and then on a good night there's going to be fire going on. It just depends on how alert and ready people are for the performance. I think that's important to, you know, warm up maybe... I mean, I like to play my didgeridoo before the show for I find it cleanses my head and makes me open and gets my vocal chords going ... ...

Interviewer
So in effect what we do in rehearsal is we work out what the motivations are, what the thoughts are, within the character, within the part that you're playing or whatever ...

Tommy
To make sure you understand what you're trying to put across...

Interviewer
We understand in very great detail the story that we're telling, so that when you come to the performance, you know where you're going, you don't necessarily know how you're going to get there tonight; or you know how you're going to get there but if things change you are responding in the right way rather than in the wrong way.

Tommy
Yes, but all the time you're becoming more and more detailed I suppose. There's more paint on the picture the more you think about it. And you can, I mean, especially for such a long tour, you can try ideas out or maybe sometimes you're going "Oh maybe that was too much; maybe I'm being a bit too self-indulgent" or you go "That was a moment". Moments happen and you can't get back to them and if you try to think, you know, 'This is the bit where the audience laughs', they never do in the same way because they only do it when, off the whim. I mean, obviously, jokes will be funny every night but why is a joke ten times funnier one night with a particular audience ...?

Interviewer
So in a way what you're talking about is being in the moment, isn't it? It's being absolutely in the moment, so you know the things that have led up to this, emotionally, motivationally, whatever?

Tommy
The more secure you are within your character, the more chance you have for being in the moment, the less paranoid you'll be about what to do with your hands or face. You can think more, the sort of foundation of knowledge you have about your character, I suppose the more things you can think about. And the audience won't know that I'm thinking about, you know, like, how man should be equal or what have you, but it's there to give you something to hold on to and to dive under ...

Interviewer
How aware are you of what the audience is seeing? Is there a sort of third eye that's constantly looking at you and checking how you're presenting stuff to the audience? You're aware of that are you?

Tommy
Yeah, I mean you never lose full control or you'd be quite mad I think. But it is an amazing thing sometimes how you can be going through extreme emotion and go "Oh I'm crying amn't I, that'll look good to the audience". Or "Oh that felt pretty aggressive there". Yeah, your little voice or what have you.

Interviewer
Do you think the play, the production, is historically accurate?

Tommy
I don't think it's important that it is. I think we're presenting a play; I mean I was speaking to someone the other day about a character in a play who had the mental age of an eight year old. And if I did the things that I've watched eight year olds when I was observing what they do, it would be completely distracting to the audience. And if we were completely naturalistic and kept it so real, it might be boring. You know what I mean?

Interviewer
Theatre is fundamentally unrealistic isn't it?

Tommy
Yes, well, I don't know how expressive they would have been but it's not really our job to create the sort of ... I think you can get a flavour, you can get a sort of idea of the times were harder than they are and you had to really work to get your money but you can put that in a perspective. But no, I haven't been back there so I don't know but, you know, I can do as much research as I can but it's still ...

Interviewer
You've got to be doing it here and now.

Tommy
Yes.

Interviewer
Do you think it's a nostalgic play or production?

Tommy
Nostalgic. No, because everything, nothing is true but change - I mean it's, okay, it looks back, you know, and all the farmers get pushed off their farms for the bigger farms but that's what happens, nothing stays the same, and that is quite beautiful in its own way. And, you know, what's good about the message is that it's striving for something better, we never, I don't think we'd ever achieve this Utopia but you can try and make things better.

Interviewer
And do you think we've worked to avoid nostalgia or to make that point in rehearsal?

Tommy
I don't think we've worked towards nostalgia, no.

Interviewer
Do you think we've worked away from nostalgia?

Tommy
Not deliberately. I don't think we ever mentioned nostalgia at all did we?

Interviewer
No, I don't think so.

Do you think the use of song and Scottish song and music and dance is important in it?

Tommy
I think it keeps it lively. With the opening it brings the audience in. That's what I like about this play, that you can look the audience in the eye and have them smiling back at you, or you know connecting with the audience. I do really like this show for that, and the start is a good way of bringing them into a sort of barn for a bit of a hoo haa or what have you and then the wedding scene is beautiful. I mean it gives me tingles singing Flooers o' the Forest and I'm sure it does the audience.

Interviewer
The audience always goes very quiet at that point doesn't it?

Tommy
There's a feeling of, I mean people have been at parties where you know folk sing a sad song and everybody joins in, and you have someone that maybe never has sung, and they feel inspired. And that to me is - I do that quite a lot - but that's a spiritual moment to me of connection.

Interviewer
Do you think that's particularly Scottish? - That moment or that song, or whatever?

Tommy
I think it happens all over the world, in different ways and dancing, music and ....

Interviewer
But that one speaks to a Scottish audience because that song is important in Scotland? It seems to me that that song is important in Scotland for its connection with funerals and so on so it has a certain poignancy. In Ireland it might be a different song, in Africa it might be something else. It's the same emotion, the same feeling, but it's this particular song in Scotland...

Tommy
Yeah, I mean, the song works and you don't ...., I mean I had a friend in the audience from Wales, and she didn't know what the song was about but she felt the emotion. She didn't know the history of it but could tell that it meant something from the feeling. And I mean that's what's beautiful about the song - you can interpret the feeling, it's in the music ...

Interviewer
Without necessarily knowing the sense of it...

Tommy
Yeah, I mean that's what's truly beautiful about music is that you can feel, feel the pain, or forget your pain.

Interviewer
How important is religion in the things that happen to Will? Does religion have an effect on the play, on the story, for Will? Is it an important force in the play?

Tommy
I think, I find what I like about the book is the standing stones and that sort of thing - not that you know I'm a pagan or anything like that or a druid. But I think there's a sense of the spiritual nature. I don't believe in a God but I do believe in a source... I mean the fact that you sing a song like Flouers o' the Forest and transmit that feeling to people and they feel and connect with you in a spiritual nature, is what I find religious about the book, in the connection with people, it's spiritual. But I think it's pretty anti-church, because people misunderstand the meaning of the church; that's why I love Long Rob when he says "If Christ came down to Kinraddie he's welcome to a meal, but he wouldn't get any at the church".

Interviewer
So there's a spiritual dimension which is separate to religion?

Tommy
Yes.

Interviewer
But religion has quite an impact on Will doesn't it through Guthrie. Guthrie is a religious man, his religion in many ways influences his behaviour that affects Will....

Tommy
I don't think Will likes the church, I think he gets bored by it, he switches off and then occasionally he twigs into moment like when he's sitting there and he's seeing people with 'the shaven chins and the offering bags between their knees' and he's watching people and seeing the hypocrites with their loads of money and all that.

Tommy
Putting Will on myself again, I used to go to church when I was younger, I used to sing in the choir, and it was an Episcopalian church, really quite sombre, and I still felt spiritual moments there, and I loved to turn round and say "Peace be with you", and I thought that's a really nice moment in the church. I think Will appreciates that side of the church but I don't think he believes in you know ....

Interviewer
But he suffers doesn't he? The thing I was going to say, Guthrie is a very religious man and it seems to me that it's Guthrie's religion in competition with his sexual urge that sours the relationships within the family and in the end kills the mother, sends Will off to Argentina. In some sense he's oppressed by religion isn't he? He has to get away from the religion that Guthrie has. Is that a fair point?

Tommy
Yeah, I mean I don't think he agrees with Guthrie's view on things.

Interviewer
Do you think Sunset Song is a political play?

Tommy
Yes.

Interviewer
In what way?

Tommy
Well, you've got this sort of, the haves and the have nots and the people making money out of war, and that's quite highlighted, and people dying for nothing.

Interviewer
There's an anti-war policy about it.

Tommy
Yeah, and I mean it is sad that happens but it does ...

Interviewer
I'm aware that it's a play about rural life, and also a play about the north-east of Scotland both of those are quite rare.

Tommy
Yes, I mean to write a play about Arbuthnott which is hardly even on the map, but that's where he came from and that's what's so real about the book. It is the only book he wrote, I think, about his home ... It was the first book, I don't know if it's the only book, no, he wrote other books as well; it was the first book that he wrote that wasn't in English, proper English. I mean he spoke English; I think that's why it goes on about language so much, and the Speak, because he speaks, he trained himself to speak normal... well ....

Interviewer
Queen's English.

Tommy
Yes. And, but he reverts back to what is his ... essentially his foundation and his upbringing and portrays it, well I think it's pretty real what he portrays. You know, obviously there's licence of imagination in writing but I get the impression, I mean it rings a true bell, if you know what I mean.

Interviewer
How important is the language? The use of a sort of semi-Scots?

Tommy
Mmm, it's good. It's gets you into their way of life, it gives you, you know, it .....

Interviewer
Why? How?

Tommy
Well I think reading the book it was quite hard, because I find words that I hadn't seen before quite hard to read, because I don't know the sound of them but once I listened to it on the tape and it's got humour in the language ....

Interviewer
Which is a particular sort of humour isn't it?

Tommy
Yeah. And it lets you in, as the play does, it lets you into that community as if you were speaking that language. You know, it gives you a chance to speak along with them, kind of thing.

Interviewer
I'm also aware that quite a lot of the dialect words that it uses are about the natural world, they're about the soil or the birds or the wind or something about the location, the place.

Tommy
Yeah, I think it's got that real grounded quality to it. It is real salt of the earth stuff. And it mentions dreams as well and people going into dream-like states, you know, 'I wanted her to wake me up from the nightmare that I was in'; and when she goes on about "It was like waking from a dream". And life is like a dream I suppose because it is all kind of changing around you and you're continually changing as a person, never actually still in a moment. I'm quite into my dreams and I find it interesting that he mentions that quite a lot during the book. And that's what rings true to me as well in a modern sense and what makes it timeless - it's that we're still experiencing these things these days. And we have no more understanding of it, I don't ... well maybe scientists have analysed it ....

Interviewer
You're quite a young actor, you're relatively new to the business. Are you, do you have an awareness of how Sunset Song, or this tour of it, this production of it, fits into Scottish theatre?

Tommy
Well it's a classic and people want to see it because a lot of people have read the book and love it and ....

Interviewer
What about Scottish theatre, rather than audiences? I'm aware for example that 7-84 pioneered touring to these tiny places and you know it's 20 or 30 years ago now. Is that important to you?

Tommy
I was saying the other day I much prefer playing to an audience of appreciative people that maybe don't get so much theatre up there or wherever, and they're out to enjoy themselves and you can see it and feel it. Rather than people who are maybe feeling that they want to intellectually analyse something or something and they're not really going to enjoy, to have a night out, they're going to boost their egos, or something. I mean the last show I did, I felt, I never knew how much the audience enjoyed it because it was quite a depressing show. But I also felt that the book [The Reader], because it had been acclaimed as a new way of thinking about the Holocaust, it was an intellectual subject for debate. Which I just found like intellectually taking apart Shakespeare, sometimes it's just a pile of faff and kak. I mean it's not the way he would have wanted it and, the way it should be.

Interviewer
And, last question, do you think this is a particularly Scottish production? Not so much the play, but the production? Can you relate this to other Scottish theatre or does it seem unScottish, or ....?

Tommy
It doesn't seem unScottish, no.

Interviewer
Are there any ...?

Tommy
I mean I did this show, another rural show, The King of the Fields [at the Traverse in Edinburgh], and you got dafties and that, and ....

Interviewer
Not so much in terms of the play but the way we've done it? Do you have ideas of what makes Scottish theatre particularly Scottish, apart from the contents of it? Or is that a stupid question?

Tommy
What makes it Scottish?

Interviewer
Yes, as opposed to English, or Continental, or American, or whatever.

Tommy
Yeah, I suppose it has a sense of the Scottish feel to it. In certain shows I've seen in Scotland. Everyone has their own style, or their own heritage or what have you. Yeah, yeah I don't think it's out of sync, if anything ....

Interviewer
Is there anything about Scottish theatre that makes it particularly Scottish? I mean, I'm aware for example that Scotland has a more recent history of variety than England. That variety has died out longer ago in England than it did in Scotland. And I think that a lot of Scottish theatre has drawn on that in the last 20 years. Is there anything that you feel is quite Scottish about the style of production or whatever?

Tommy
Yes, in the sense that it's changing - I'm glad we're not doing it the way the lads did it [in the original production by TAG in 1991 & 1993] with the movement style that was going on in that era. I think you know shows develop in time to what your audience want to see.

Interviewer
Thank you, Tommy.

Discussion: