This week's theatre in Scotland: Wolfie (some sort of fairytale), Quietus reviews

The always-reliable Glasgow Tron’s recent programming has blended new plays by emerging playwrights with challenging, topical works from around the world. Ross Willis’ award-garlanded Wolfie (some sort of fairytale) (★★★★) is the latter, first seen at Theatre 503 in London in 2019. This production, directed by Joanna Bowman, features Leah Byrne and Anna Russell-Martin as the Sharkey twins. We follow the pair, referred to as simply Z and A, from their first encounter in the womb, through adoption and enforced separation, when their depressive adoptive mother rejects A, to a decidedly bittersweet reunion-of-sorts in later life.

Willis’ text is marked by a stylised verbosity that, at its best, mirrors the sharp rhythms of bubbling, quick-witted conversation. But it also feels digressive, inflating the piece to an overlong running time. The fairytale aspect – A is literally raised by wolves, one of an unseen army of damaged, rejected children left to the wilderness – also feels at odds with the gritty realism of the world these young women inhabit.

It feels as though it is a play that might go badly wrong were it not in the hands of a director and cast who are utterly in physical and emotional sync with its intent. Tron associate Bowman stages it with stripped-back simplicity and effortless precision. Colin Grenfell’s lighting tracks complex moods and positions as the actors travel the room, among and around the small audience seated in a circle, plucking hidden props from the backs of chairs and making viewers into silent characters (optional yellow badges for those who don’t wish to be disturbed are a nice touch).

The combination of Russell-Martin and Byrne is sublime, from their sassy, baby-talking emergence from the womb, to the physicality of A’s wolf-walk with her "mother" (Jack Webb’s movement direction deserves much credit), to the quiet tenderness of Z’s supportive chemistry teacher succumbing to cancer. It’s a pocket-sized tour de force.

Matthew McVarish’s Quietus (★★★), directed for lunchtime theatre series A Play, a Pie and a Pint by Maggie Kinloch, takes us inside the mind of Donald. His apparent learning difficulties and reliance on his elderly mother have left him bereft following her death from Covid. Contemplating suicide, he’s interrupted by a knock at the door from nurse-like Samaritan Daniel (Ruairidh Forde). The time and attention Daniel lavishes on Donald offer a clue that he isn’t the usual visitor from “the social”, and the two commence a discussion on the value of life that touches upon both secular and religious purpose, as well as recovery from grief.

McVarish’s choice to tackle the actual act of suicide is bold, if often uncomfortable, and Kinloch’s direction accentuates the essential loss and lostness at Donald’s heart. Although at times the piece leaves us uncertain where and why we are on this journey, it’s ultimately sure-footed enough to convince.