The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil by John McGrath and The First Men on Mercury by Edwin Morgan are two literary texts of different genres which both challenge and embrace ideas of national identity, particularly Scottish identity. The term ‘national identity’ refers to a cohesive nation who are tied together by culture, traditions and language. The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil expresses ideas of national identity through its historical depiction of Scotland in the early nineteenth century and the economic and social changes of the time, for example the introduction of the English into the Scottish Highlands. The First Men on Mercury on the other hand deals with national identity through different characters who seem ‘alien’ to each other but eventually learn to coexist.
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil is a docudrama which discusses the socioeconomic history of the Scottish Highlands as well as the discovery of oil in the North Sea. The play is split into three acts, each of which are highly distinctive in what they focus upon and why. The beginning focuses on the Cheviot and explains the Highland Clearances. The Highland Clearances involved the removal of tenant farmers in order to reuse the land for sheep farming which was highly profitable at the time. The middle deals with the Stag and delves into the English hunting estates. Some class this as almost a second clearances as anyone who was still in the area were forced out yet again as now the Highlands were being converted into hunting estates. The ending fixates on the oil discovery and how it led to the uncertainty surrounding Scotland’s economic status. The ending of the play creates speculation about what will happen to Scotland in the future as the oil boom had caused people to be wary of the Scottish economy and how it will hold. The three acts work together to show the strength of the Scottish national identity and do so through the use of song, dance and dialogue. Similarly to this The First Men on Mercury uses gibberish/made-up words to symbolise the Scottish vernacular as this is exactly how the English would have interpreted the dialect – as nonsense words. The First Men on Mercury takes a humorous approach towards telling the story of explorers from Earth travelling to Mercury and encountering the inhabitants. Even-though The First Men on Mercury is entirely fictional it is still relevant in the analysis of ideas surrounding national identity as the characters and themes deal with communication, discovery and compromise. All of which are also relevant within The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil as the play centres around communication and discovery as the Scots and the English have to communicate together.
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil is written in Brechtian style compared to The First Men on Mercury which is written as a free verse poem and doesn’t follow a strict format. The Brecht style “spark[s] an interest in . . . audiences’ perception of the world.” (Marsden, Sam. “Bertolt Brecht | Techniques and Facts.” Dramaclasses.biz, www.dramaclasses.biz/bertolt-brecht-techniques-and-factsbertolt-brecht-techniques-and-facts. par. 3) This is useful when expressing the strength of the Scottish national identify as it engages the audience and makes them feel as if they are part of the play – the same way that nationalism helps people feel connected and part of something that is bigger than themselves. It is clear within The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil that the Scottish National identity is a huge aspect of Highland society in the nineteenth century when we see the characters join in unison to sing about their political resistance:
“But we'll fight
Once again
For this country is the people’s
Yes we'll fight once again.”
(Preface to John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (Isle of Skye: West Highland Publishing Co. Ltd, 1975) (rev. ed., first published 1974), pp. 25-26.)
The use of song in the play is significant as it is an unusual theatrical technique to be used in a political play. The unusualness and uniqueness of the music and songs shocks the audience and brings them into the play in a more personally as it encourages them to join in and feel as if they are part of the action – similar to how nationalism/patriotism makes people feel connected to each other. The connection between the Scottish Highlanders and the Englishmen contrasts with what is presented in The First Men on Mercury as the characters within the poem do not merge well at first as they are confronted with a language barrier:
“– We come in peace from the third planet.
Would you take us to your leader?
– Bawr stretter! Bawr. Bawr. Stretterhawl?”
(Edwin Morgan. The First Men on Mercury, From Glasgow to Saturn. Carcanet, 1973.)
The use of nonsense words is a portrayal of the Scottish language and dialect and expresses to the readers how difficult to comprehend the English found the Scots, especially during the nineteenth century when migration of the English up North was more common. The free verse style of Morgan’s The First Men on Mercury symbolises the non-structured existence of the martian people and the back and forth that was displayed between the earthmen and the martians. Due to Morgan’s poem being largely occupied by dialogue it conflicts with the structure of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil as the McGrath play is centred around action and song rather than character development and intense dialogue. The individual actors playing multiple characters helped us to visualise a complete unit of everyone feeling connected and all as one, the women within the play were especially significant as “The strength of character of the Highlanders (the women in particular) is reflected in a number of true accounts outlining their resistance to the Clearances.” (“Higher English – Plot – Revision 3.” BBC News, BBC, www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxdyrdm/revision/3.) The women in particular are significant as they express their personal stories directly to the audience which is a Brecht theatre technique that is employed in order to draw the audience in in a more emotional way yet still remind them that they are indeed watching a play. The women shared stories of their experiences with the Highland clearances and how it effected everyone as a whole, it impacted the entirety of Scotland once again highlighting the Scottish people’s national identity as a strong one. Morgan creates a bond between his characters by using the free verse structure whereas McGrath’s characters never fully develop backstories as the actors are split between multiple characters – this is a highly significant part of Brechtian theatre. This is significant when discussing national identity as The First Men on Mars embraces the two identities of the Scots (martians) and the English (Earthmen) whereas The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil challenges the national identity of the Scots and the English as it shows how different social, economic and political events impacted the ways the Scots felt about being Scottish and their pride in their country. Involved within The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil is a ‘pop-up’ stage, this means that the actors create and move the set on stage, live in front of the audience, this furthers the idea of the Scottish people acting together as a unit and highlights their nationalism and Scottish identity.
The use of the Scottish vernacular plays a huge part in both McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and Morgan’s The First Men on Mercury as it is used to express a strong national identity between the Scottish Highlanders and the martians when being confronted with English intruders. Due to the Scots vernacular not being a widely used or understood, the usage of it gives an edge to both Morgan’s work and McGrath’s alike. The Scottish Vernacular highlights the Scottish national identity within The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil as it shows that the Scottish people were not willing to compromise their dialect in order to be understood easier by the English and American infiltrators. According to Milne: “McGrath’s work can be situated, accordingly, as a negotiation between historical tragedy and the politics of contemporary farce” (Drew Milne, ‘Cheerful History: The Political Theatre of John McGrath’, New Theatre Quarterly 18, 72 [2002], p. 313) This ties into the use of traditional Scottish dialogue as it highlights the strength of the Scots’ national identity in times of hardships, for example when the Texans come from American to try take over the newly found oil in Scotland within the section of ‘the Black, Black Oil’ in The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil. The strength of the Scottish people is shown clearly through the Scottish vernacular throughout the entirety of the play as the nationalism of Scotland is the highlighting theme of the play (as well as politics, injustice, tradition, innovation and patriotism).
The best way to educate an audience about a specific time period in history is to give an accurate portrayal of what the time would have been like and “if a theatre company wants to speak to the working class, it would do well to learn something of its language” (John McGrath, A Good Night Out: Popular Theatre: Class and Form [London: Eyre Methuen, 1981a], p. 59.) When comparing The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and The First Men on Mercury, Cheviot embraces the Scottish vernacular and highlights it as the ‘norm’ and the English and American vernaculars seem misplaced whereas The First Men on Mercury presents the vernacular in a similar manner as touched upon previously. The First Men on Mercury presents Scots as the normal language and dialect of the region, Mercury aka Scotland. When the English Earthmen touch down on the planet they find it difficult to comprehend the gibberish of the national dialect, Morgan presents this to us as readers by the creation of fake words:
“– This is a little plastic model
of the solar system, with working parts.
You are here and we are there and we
are now here with you, is this clear?
– Gawl horrop. Bawr Abawrhannahanna!” (Morgan)
The fake words help us comprehend just how difficult it would have been for the Earthmen to understand the martians and be able to have a conversation with them. By doing this Morgan brings the reader in and makes them connect with the poem in an interesting way. The way that the readers feel drawn into the poem is symbolic of the way that nationalism and patriotism draws people into their communities and makes them feel like a single unit rather than multiple individuals who all happen to have a sense of pride in their homeland. Unlike in The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, the Earthmen and the martians begin to integrate verbally and soon are able to understand each other without changing their own native tongues:
“Yuleeda tan hanna. Harrabost yuleeda.
– I am the yuleeda. You see my hands,” (Morgan)
It is clear here that the English Earthmen are adapting to the martian vernacular and are able to comprehend the meanings behind the noises while in The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil the different dialects are overly annunciated and are expressed in such a way to highlight the divide between the different groups rather than a connection between them. The use of the Scots vernacular in both The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and The First Men on Mercury is effective in challenging and embracing the Scottish national identity as in Cheviot the Scottish national identity is challenged and put to the test by foreigners who were trying to take over the land and claim Scottish property as their own. Whereas in Men on Mercury the Scottish heritage and dialect is embraced and conjoins with the Earthmen’s during the poem, this shows us that it is indeed possible for people to learn and adapt to different and new dialects/vernaculars and that the English people featured in The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil where just being disrespectful to the Scottish people, more so than they already were by causing the Highland Clearances and hunting the Scottish grouse.
To conclude, John McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and Edwin Morgan’s The First Men on Mercury are a play and a poem which both deal with the concept of challenging national identity, in this case the Scottish national identity. As discussed The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil deals with the historical past of Scotland, specifically within the nineteenth century and The First Men on Mercury is a science-fiction poem which details an encounter between ‘Earthmen’ and ‘Martians’, the poem itself is symbolic of how the Scottish and English soldiers learned to adapt to each others ways of life during the war, we know this as Morgan wrote this poem during the war period. Both the poem and the play show the different challenges that are posed towards staying true to your national identity and both show that it is possible to fully embrace it and even share it with others e.g. the martians and the earthmen learning to understand each other in a healthy way rather than oppressive techniques to bloke out the ‘weaker’ or less common vernacular. Whereas the English people in The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil tried to oppress the Scots by forcing them out of their homes in the Highlands of Scotland. Overall, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and The First Men on Mercury both challenge and highlight the received ideas of national identity and express this concept in two individually unique ways.