NIGHT WAKING
A remote Scottish island. A sleep-deprived mother. A grave you were never meant to find.
Anna Bennett should be writing a book. Instead, she’s counting the minutes of lost sleep, peeling a toddler off her leg, and Googling ‘Victorian infanticide’ at 3 a.m. Her ornithologist husband is out studying puffins, oblivious. Her sons are running feral. And when she and her eldest uncover something in the garden—something small, something wrapped in wool—it becomes clear that history isn’t just a thing she studies. It’s here. Underfoot. And it won’t rest quietly.
AN TOBAR & MULL THEATRE, SCOTTISH NATIONAL TOUR
October 2025
Written by SHIREEN MULA
Adapted from the novel by SARAH MOSS
Directed by REBECCA ATKINSON-LORD
Set, Lighting & Video Design by HUGO DODSWORTH
Costume Design by SARAH BOOTH
Sound Design by NICOLETTE MACLEOD
Photographs by MIHAELA BODLOVIC
★★★★
“Visually, the production is striking. Hugo Dodsworth’s set unfolds gradually, revealing new layers as Anna’s psyche fractures further. What begins as a sparse domestic space becomes something more fluid and uncannier, a stage that seems to shift under our feet. Projections are used with intelligence, sometimes evoking the island’s rugged beauty, sometimes intruding with disorienting force.”
“the interplay of light, sound, and image creates a world that feels both claustrophobic and expansive, mirroring the paradox of island life.”
“[through the projection design] the landscape itself becomes a character, its silence and remoteness pressing down on Anna as much as her sleepless nights.”
★★★★
“Designer Hugo Dodsworth evokes the chaos and claustrophobia of Anna’s existence via a cluttered wooden table, an earth-filled hole in the floor that serves as both baby grave and bath and vast projections of oppressive island landscapes splashed across the back wall.”
“Hugo Dodsworth’s design is ingenious.”
★★★★
“Rebecca Atkinson-Lord’s agile direction is complemented by Hugo Dodsworth’s impressive set and video design: the projected background images jolting us from one scene to another, as scattered and disconnected as Anna’s sleep-deprived thought processes.”
