A Satire of the Three Estates in 500 Tweets
Historic text on twitter and film
A scene from the June 2013 production. Photo © Staging the Scottish Court
By Thom Dibdin
Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, Sir David Lyndsay’s satirical morality play first performed in 1540, is being tweeted by Staging the Scottish Court.
The tweeting of the play is in both the Middle Scots text with modern English/Inglish summary. “Rude words and all”, according to the tweeters who anticipate taking 500 tweets over the whole play.
Staging the Scottish Court is a two year, interdisciplinary research project which staged the play in its entirety for the first time since last June at Linlithgow. The production was part of a wider investigation of the Scottish Renaissance and Stewart court and modern images of national identity and the Scottish past.
The project, led by Professor Greg Walker and Dr Eleanor Rycroft of the University of Edinburgh, and Professor Thomas Betteridge of Brunel University, brings together academics from across the U.K with archaeologists and historical interpreters from Historic Scotland and professional theatre and filmmakers.
The play was famously at the heart of a dispute over the nature of the National Theatre of Scotland – with historian Paul Henderson Scott vilifying the then NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone for not staging the work once a year, every year.
Last summer’s performance was filmed and is available to view on the Staging the Scottish Court website: www.stagingthescottishcourt.org.
Follow @Satire3Estates and the hashtag #S3E500 for the tweets of the play: www.twitter.com
A discussion on All Edinburgh Theatre of the dispute between Henderson Scott and Featherstone is here: The Vicious Circle
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