14/11/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

 Matthew Zajac’s remarkable monologue tells the true story of his father, Matteusz, born in Poland and destined to be inextricably caught up in the turbulent happenings of the Second World War, despatched first to fight for his home country and then, latterly, enlisted by both the German and the Russian armies. But when we first meet Matteusz, he’s telling his young son a popular folk tale about a boy and his father, pursued through the snow by a pack of wolves. Zajac speaks initially in Polish, the translated words projected onto a backdrop that is itself a collage of countless garments, plastered onto a wall. As Zajac talks, fiddle player Gavin Marwick provides an inventive accompaniment and the musician remains onstage throughout, his playing reflecting the varying moods.

Zajac soon switches to English, speaking in his father’s voice (with a delightful Polish/Scottish accent), telling us of his early days in Glasgow: how he first became a tailor and how he eventually ended up in the more tranquil environs of Inverness. It’s warm, amusing stuff, but it’s evident as he talks that there’s more – much more – that he is not ready to reveal right now. It’s only as the story progresses that the various threads are unravelled and the hard truths emerge. When Hitler’s forces invade Poland, Matteusz’s life is irrevocably disrupted and, in the desperate struggle to survive, this man’s ultimate loyalty can only be to himself.

Of course, real life has none of the convenience of fiction and sometimes Matteusz’s story is so complex, so labyrinthine, it’s hard for me to get a fix on exactly what’s happening. Maps are projected onto the backdrop to illustrate Matteusz’s travels during the years of conflict – from Poland to Russia, from Galicia to Africa. A series of different uniforms are pressed into service to depict his switching loyalties. Well, not loyalties exactly, but which particular army he is next forced to enlist in.

Zajac is an accomplished storyteller and he manages to hold a packed audience spellbound as, in the later sections of the narrative, he switches from being his father to being himself, as he sets out on a mission to unravel the parts of Matteusz’s life that have been kept hidden – and to track down the sibling that Matthew didn’t even know existed. 

It’s an extraordinary tale and it’s weirdly unsettling to hear Zajac talking about the butchery going on between Russians and Ukrainians back down the years, only to reflect how essentially nothing has changed. The Tailor of Inverness is by no means a perfect piece of theatre – I feel sure that solving the issues of those more bewildering sections is not beyond the efforts of a playwright – but perhaps the play’s continuing success points to the old adage of not fixing what isn’t broken. 

And there’s little doubting the exuberant applause which Zajac receives as he takes his final bow.

3.7 stars

Philip Caveney