It''s a story that has a beginning, a middle, but as yet, no end. John McGrath''s winding, furious, innovative play tracks the economic history and exploitation of the Scottish Highlands from the post-Rebellion suppression of the clans to the story of the Clearances: in the 19th century, aristocratic landowners discovered the profitability of sheep farming, and forced a mass emigration of rural Highlanders, burning their houses in order to make way for the Cheviot sheep. Described by the playwright as having a -ceilidh- format, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil draws on historical research alongside Gaelic song and the Scots'' love of variety and popular entertainment to tell this epic story. A totally distinctive cultural and theatrical phenomenon, the play championed several new approaches to theatre, raising its profile as a means of political intervention; proposing a collective and collaborative approach to creating theatre; offering a language of perfor
