New work 2025:
MAIDEN MOTHER MAGE
Heaven is a group project
Artwork: 'Maiden Mother Mage' © Frances Law
Maiden Mother Mage is a new text and performance written and devised by Rebecca Sharp. Development work in 2024 and performances in 2025 have been supported by Creative Scotland.
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Performances will take place at Culross Abbey in Fife (17-19 July 2025) and at Glasgow Cathedral (Glasgow Cathedral Festival, 18 September 2025).
The project features an original score composed and performed by Alex South; and original artwork by Frances Law. Costume by Jessica Brettle. The book of the text will be published by Matecznik Press in July 2025.
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Cast: Israela Efomi ('Maiden' / Thaney), Taylor Dyson ('Mother' / Teneu), and Fletcher Mathers ('Mage' / Enoch). ​​
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**More news will follow through spring of 2025. Performance ticket sales for Culross Abbey will open in April, linked here and elsewhere.**​
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Maiden Mother Mage is a performance of three interweaving poetic monologues, with music: three versions of St Teneu, also known as St Enoch, or Thaney.
Thaney was a 6th century CE Brythonic princess, daughter of Leudonis or King Lot at Traprain Law in the Kingdom of Gododdin (Lothian). Cherished by many, she is venerated in the Christian faith as Saint Teneu or Thaney, Protector of the Abused, and as St Enoch of Glasgow. One story goes that she was assaulted at the age of seventeen, discovered to be pregnant and thrown off Traprain Law as punishment. She survived the fall to be punished a second time (some say was accused of witchcraft), placed in an oarless boat and set into the Firth of Forth at Aberlady Bay. She again survived to wash ashore at Culross in Fife, where she was taken in by St Serf, founder of an early church (later the site of Culross Abbey). There she had her son, Kentigern / Mungo, who would go on to found the city of Glasgow. Varying accounts of her assault persist, each a further erosion of consent as it’s not possible to know from Thaney herself. She enters myth, both human being and story-bearer. She marks a time when the early Celtic Church was gaining ground in Scotland, superseding older pagan and Druidic practices and beliefs. Her imagery is intensely Arthurian, as is her alleged lineage. Fact grows indiscernible from fiction, and Thaney holds the space between.
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We wonder what role she holds now, as she rises during times of violence and abuses of power. We meet her here in triple form: as Maiden (exiled girl of seventeen), Mother (of Mungo and other creations), and Mage (shaman, abbess, Cailleach). Giving voice to the outcast and voiceless, Thaney shows us how we might repair divisions that were cast upon us all so long ago.
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Project partners are Historic Environment Scotland and Glasgow Cathedral Festival; alongside Project Champions Fife Writes and the Centre for Poetic Innovation, community partners Fife Coast & Countryside Trust (for the Fife Pilgrim Way), and project patrons.
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WORKSHOPS: Accompanying the project is a community workshop strand, supported by and delivered with Historic Environment Scotland. 'Thaney's Haven: stories of refuge and recovery' sees RS working with women's groups in East Lothian, Fife and Glasgow through the early part of 2025. Their work will explore issues of identity in transition over time and personal experience.