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Plays 1: Europe / The Architect / The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union
The first collection of plays of one of Scotland's best-known contemporary dramatists
EUROPE is set in a railway station at an unnamed border town where old and new Europeans weave a tale of love, loss and longing. "Fierce, compassionate, mightily ambitious drama?there is the sharp, analytic intelligence, the crackling inventiveness of a real writer buzzing about this gripping play" Scotsman
THE ARCHITECT charts the rise and fall of Leo Black, once an idealistic and idolised designer, whose magnificent visions are now crumbling, along with his family, in the light of grubby reality. "Provides convincing evidence of David Greig's confident transition from a dramatist of promise to one of stature" Independent.
Lyrical, soulful and darkly funny, THE COSMONAUT'S LAST MESSAGE weaves together the stories of a fraught Scottish couple whose TV is on the blink, a Norwegian UN peace negotiator, a young prostitute, a French UFO researcher, a pregnant police woman and two forgotten Cosmonauts who sadly orbit the planet.
"The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years" Scotsman
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 25, 2002
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About the author
David Greig
67 books65 followersDavid Greig is a Scottish dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh in 1969 and brought up in Nigeria. He studied drama at Bristol University and is now a well-known writer and director of plays. He has been commissioned by the Royal Court, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company and was Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh from 2015 until 2025, when he left to return to writing.
His first play was produced in Glasgow in 1992 and he has written many plays since, produced worldwide. In 1990 he co-founded Suspect Culture Theatre Group with Graham Eatough in Glasgow.
His translations include Camus' Caligula (2003), Candide 2000, and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, based on a book by Raja Shehadeh. Danmy 306 + Me (4 ever) (1999) is a play written for children.
David Greig's plays include The American Pilot (2005), about America's involvement in the Middle East and Eastern Europe; Pyrenees (2005) about a man who is found in the foothills of the Pyrenees, having lost his memory; and San Diego (2003), a journey through the American dream. His latest works are Gobbo, a modern- day fairytale; Herges Adverntures of Tintin, an adaptation; Yellow Moon (2006); and Damascus (2007)
His first play was produced in Glasgow in 1992 and he has written many plays since, produced worldwide. In 1990 he co-founded Suspect Culture Theatre Group with Graham Eatough in Glasgow.
His translations include Camus' Caligula (2003), Candide 2000, and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, based on a book by Raja Shehadeh. Danmy 306 + Me (4 ever) (1999) is a play written for children.
David Greig's plays include The American Pilot (2005), about America's involvement in the Middle East and Eastern Europe; Pyrenees (2005) about a man who is found in the foothills of the Pyrenees, having lost his memory; and San Diego (2003), a journey through the American dream. His latest works are Gobbo, a modern- day fairytale; Herges Adverntures of Tintin, an adaptation; Yellow Moon (2006); and Damascus (2007)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 30, 2015
Never thought I'm reading such great plays in the beginning. Symbols, allegories, images are all masterfully crafted. Such a great mind Greig has.
December 18, 2017
Europe: This play is focused on the question of mobility, and the dangers associated both with being a migrant and with staying home. The most obvious dangers here are those faced by the three characters uprooted from their homes--Katia and her father Sava, who are refugees fleeing the war (what war isn't specified, because to a certain extent it doesn't matter, since all wars produce refugees), and Morocco, who is a travelling trader who identifies more with Katia than with the people in this town where he grew up. Both Sava and Morocco are beaten by local skinheads/nationalists, and Katia only manages to avoid some kind of violence, whether physical or sexual, because she runs away while Morocco is being beaten. But the more subtle danger, the one that isn't as overtly coded as a danger is the rise of the fascistic and xenophobic nationalism. In their desperate attempt to keep the town as it was (despite the fact that the changes have nothing to do with immigrants, but have to do with the economic streamlining of borders in a globalized economy) Horse and Berlin end up committing an act at the end of the play which will forever change the town--they become the ones who bring about the very change they are trying to avoid.
The Architect: This is a play about the difficulty of building things the way you envision them. There is one direct story line about an architect who designed a group of council flats to be beautiful, communal, and well built, but shoddy work and under-funding for the project turned the estate into a ghetto whose residents want it torn down. But around this story there are a number of relationships that break down or fail to start up properly. Part of the issue is that the Black family--Leo Black being the architect--seems mostly to be emotionally stunted. Their emotional isolation, confusion, and misanthropy make it difficult for them to form meaningful relationships.
The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union: In the third play in this collection, Greig takes on the difficulty of communicating. Throughout the play this takes several forms, from Casimir's (one of the two cosmonauts drifting through orbit on a forgotten mission) desperate attempts to fix the radio so he can talk to his daughter, to her attempts to maintain communication with him by waving at the sky when the orbiter passes overhead, to the stroke Patient's inability to speak or recall what has happened. But what's really interesting about these failures of communication is that encoded within them are sets of related ideas, images, and expressions. For instance, Eric--a Norwegian World Bank civil servant--describes his first orgasm as involving his legs going numb and him feeling blue, which is the same description Bernard--a UFO enthusiast who spends all his time trying obsessively to communicate with aliens--gives for how he experienced his stroke. So that's an interesting element here, that even as the characters struggle to communicate, their experiences remain overlaid with the same kinds/shades of meaning.
The Architect: This is a play about the difficulty of building things the way you envision them. There is one direct story line about an architect who designed a group of council flats to be beautiful, communal, and well built, but shoddy work and under-funding for the project turned the estate into a ghetto whose residents want it torn down. But around this story there are a number of relationships that break down or fail to start up properly. Part of the issue is that the Black family--Leo Black being the architect--seems mostly to be emotionally stunted. Their emotional isolation, confusion, and misanthropy make it difficult for them to form meaningful relationships.
The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union: In the third play in this collection, Greig takes on the difficulty of communicating. Throughout the play this takes several forms, from Casimir's (one of the two cosmonauts drifting through orbit on a forgotten mission) desperate attempts to fix the radio so he can talk to his daughter, to her attempts to maintain communication with him by waving at the sky when the orbiter passes overhead, to the stroke Patient's inability to speak or recall what has happened. But what's really interesting about these failures of communication is that encoded within them are sets of related ideas, images, and expressions. For instance, Eric--a Norwegian World Bank civil servant--describes his first orgasm as involving his legs going numb and him feeling blue, which is the same description Bernard--a UFO enthusiast who spends all his time trying obsessively to communicate with aliens--gives for how he experienced his stroke. So that's an interesting element here, that even as the characters struggle to communicate, their experiences remain overlaid with the same kinds/shades of meaning.
August 11, 2021
There's definitely an upwards trend in the quality of these plays in the collection, so here goes:
Europe - 3 stars
A little dull.
The Architect - 3.5 stars
A clever play about a nuclear family that seemingly have had everything they could have ever hoped for and yet deterioate under the weight of their fractured relationships. There's also some interesting mirroring with the lead character's block of flats which he designed, structurally sound but destroyed by lack of local council funding and social degeneration.
The Cosmonaut's Last Message - 4.5 stars
By far the best play in the collection and the only one I think I'll be rereading. I feel by this point Greig had very much found his voice. His quiet cynicism and astute observations from earlier works have been refined and he's operating at a much higher level.
Europe - 3 stars
A little dull.
The Architect - 3.5 stars
A clever play about a nuclear family that seemingly have had everything they could have ever hoped for and yet deterioate under the weight of their fractured relationships. There's also some interesting mirroring with the lead character's block of flats which he designed, structurally sound but destroyed by lack of local council funding and social degeneration.
The Cosmonaut's Last Message - 4.5 stars
By far the best play in the collection and the only one I think I'll be rereading. I feel by this point Greig had very much found his voice. His quiet cynicism and astute observations from earlier works have been refined and he's operating at a much higher level.
April 24, 2020
"If God was a railwayman then things would stay on track. Things would run smoothly. I'd say God works in headoffice. I'd say God wears a suit"
June 27, 2024
In this volume, I only read the first play, "Europe". My rating is based on that play alone.
August 20, 2009
Europe: A samll play about lots of things, the least of which is the effects of a failing economy on a small European town. While good, for me at least it didn't hit me emotionally.
The Architect: this one however did hit me emotionally. A hard play to describe really, but it (like Greig's other plays) deals with escape, class, the distance between people, and the vantage point on our own lives. What is nice is that this play makes literal many of the ideas that were eluded to in Europe and yet they maintained their poetry.
Cosmonaut's Last Message . . .: my favorite play in the bunch. This play is highly emotional, poetic, and thought provoking. This play's main study is human communication: striving, failing, needing, and succeeding. It is simply beautiful.
The Architect: this one however did hit me emotionally. A hard play to describe really, but it (like Greig's other plays) deals with escape, class, the distance between people, and the vantage point on our own lives. What is nice is that this play makes literal many of the ideas that were eluded to in Europe and yet they maintained their poetry.
Cosmonaut's Last Message . . .: my favorite play in the bunch. This play is highly emotional, poetic, and thought provoking. This play's main study is human communication: striving, failing, needing, and succeeding. It is simply beautiful.
November 18, 2007
I loved this guy's adaptation of the Bacchae, so I thought I'd read his other work. It's well written, interesting, smart, insightful at times, etc. Just bleak, bleak and more bleak. Is there a name for this school of writing yet? The boy-people-are-screwed-up-and-can-you-believe-how-cold-things-can-be school? The let's witness disaffected cruelty? Maybe they're called the new angry-young-men? I don't know. But this series of plays fits in to whatever that school's called just fine.
July 27, 2011
The cosmanauts last message is a very complex but very clever play with several characters who are all linked together in some way.
May 23, 2016
I only read Europe
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews