The Play

The action takes place in Willie Dobbie's newly acquired warehouse, which he is preparing for an all-night rave with the help of a highly suspicious muscleman named David Arbogast, as well as some local clubbers - Leonard, Holly, Evelyn and Janice.

While Dobbie attempts to get into the pants of the girls, Arbogast spends his time minding leonard, the DJ and potential psycho in residence, and Fraser, a young clubber who is hiding in the basement after pulling an insurance job for Dobbie. It emerges that Fraser has been coerced into torching a van for Dobbie, or Fraser's friend Raymond will come by an injury courtesy of Arbogast and Leonard. It also turns out that Dobbie's main competition, Alec Sneddon (local drug dealer and club owner) was in the back of the van when it was torched, and that Raymond is also being coerced into providing drugs for Dobbie to sell in the club.

As the party grows nearer, the clubbers discover more and more about their circumstances, and the combination of personal revelations, blackmail and copious drug taking proves a dangerous mixture, resulting in an incendiary finale. Dobbie's little helpers turn out to be far more trouble than they are worth - and not as stupid as they look - and the competition that Dobbie thinks he has dispatched turns out to be more difficult to dispose of than he thought.

With writing that takes language to new, twisted heights and characters that will fascinate audiences, the play does not so much describe a series of specific events, but like Art or Poor Superman is about the interaction between the characters and the discoveries they make about themselves. As an experience for audiences, the play is like a theatrical fist sporting brass knuckles, and there is no let-up in the assault on the audience's senses or their perception of what the underbelly of the rave scene is really like.

 

Imagine a collaboration between Joe Orton and William Burroughs
and you will have some idea of Simon Donald's play...
This is such stuff as the greatest nightmares are made of...
the writing is fueled by heavy Calledonian humour and a monstrous eloquence,
like tigers reciting Blake, or like someone carving arabesques on your skin
with a meat cleaver.
John Peter, The Sunday Times

The Author

Simon Donald is a playwright and actor who has written for some of the biggest television shows produced in Scotland and England.

His most notable work was the Screenplay for the television mini-series The Hideous, Hellish Crimes of Deacon Brodie and his Abominable Crew ending in their Several Executions, which starred Billy Connelly (Mrs Brown), Siobahn Redmond (Holby City), Ken Stott (Plunket & Maclane) and other major talents.

He has written regularly for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, which is one of the most highly regarded theatres in the UK, and his other plays include A Tennant for Edgar Mortez (for Abattoir Theatre Company), In Descent and Prickly Heat (also for the Traverse). The Life of Stuff received two high profile stagings in the UK - one at the Traverse in 1992, and a second at The Donmar Warehouse in 1993. This second staging was produced by Sam Mendez, director of American Beauty, and starred Douglas Henshall (This Year's Love, Psychos).

The Life of Stuff has also been adapted as a film, written by Simon Donald and released in the UK by Film Four. This production will be the Canadian Premiere of Th