Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed cements her place in literary canon

The National

13 hours ago

The play tells the story of Shepherd as an author, teacher, hillwalker and lover, and explores the 30-years-delay in the publication of her masterpiece The Living Mountain.
Now in its second run in Pitlochry, I did not want to miss. Before entering the studio space, we were told the show was 'very clever' by staff and it had sold out the remainder of the performances. The thirst for knowledge about Shepherd has not been quenched since her appearance on Scotland's five-pound note in 2016.
She has taken her rightful place among the great Scottish writers of her time, of whom she was friends with, and with that, becoming a posthumous celebrity.
Holding the titular role, Susan Coyle effortlessly shifted as a child playing in the woods with her father, to a young woman teasing a married man, a middle-aged teacher relishing in the outdoors, and an old woman reflecting on her life's work, then later in her final days.
Around and around, we were carried, spinning through time and Shepherd's life.
Along the way, Adam Buksh joined her, embodying several men who played key roles in her life. He transformed into her father, her lover John Macmurray, an American journalist who tracked her down in 1976, and her mentor Neil Gunn.
The periods of her life that were played out each helped capture a full-bodied picture of Shepherd.
We saw her as a child in the Quarry Wood by her house in 1901, aged eight – which later inspired her first novel, by the same name, published in 1928 – playing with her father and learning about communication between trees.
We were then transported to 1981, to see Nan grown and old, in a care home in Aberdeen slightly lost and confused. These two scenes bookend the play, with us returning to them again for the final two scenes.
The play makes clear that Nan was closely attached the granite city, with the audience asked to fill in the evident gap: 'I was born in Aberdeen, I went to school in Aberdeen, and so I teach in …' when we meet her in 1938 in a classroom.
Again, none of the staging has been moved, and Coyle doesn't change outfits at any point during the 90-minute production. Yet, it is an entirely different time, place and person in front of us.
While embodying Shepherd as a teacher, Coyle asks audience members to read passages written by several authors which relate to Scotland and its literary renaissance of the 20th century.
We also hear from Charles Murray, Hugh MacDiarmid, Rupert Brooke, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy,
The delivery of these passages by both Coyle and Buksh ensnared the audience and we were hooked on every word.
Later, while going through old clippings with Robertson, a review written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon of The Quarry Wood is found, in which he savagely tears apart her work and her use of Scots language.
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Gibbon would go on to publish Sunset Song four years later, and we are told by Shepherd that his autobiographer said he never read Shepherd's novel.
Robertson is aghast that as a student in the US, he was taught Sunset Song and told it was one of the greatest Scottish novels there had ever been but had never heard of Shepherd or her work which embodies the same world as Gibbon's but came first. Shepherd in 1976 notes her novel was written in Scotland, while his was written in England.
The audience is left to make their own conclusion, as historians have been also.
Instead of holding the audience in a grudge, we explore the deeper impact of what Shepherd was attempting to do at a time when the world was not built for a 'female feminist Scottish writer,' unmarried and uncovering the secrets ready to be shared by the great outdoors in ways that would rival and overtake any male counterpart.
So harsh was this backlash, from Gibbon and others, she locked The Living Mountain away. This is the catalyst of the show, with the direction, sound, and writing using this moment to give the narrative a sense of release once the drawer is open.
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The relationship between Shepherd and Gunn is also explored but not with conclusion. The journalist pries into whether love letters were exchanged between the two, who had decades-long written correspondence, but Shepherd remains steadfast that he was her mentor.
Again, it's not clear whether the pair were intimately involved but both the writing and direction of the show allows the narrative to be explored without making any conclusions about Shepherd's life.
The audience is left to read between the lines of all we know about Shepherd. An Aberdonian woman who wrote before her time, saw beyond her reality, and truly understood what the beauty and intricacies of Scotland's landscape and culture could give to this world if seen in its entirety.
Her final moments are played out, with a final scene between Shepherd and her father bringing tears to many in the audience who closed the show with a standing ovation.