“This is ultimately an excellent play still in the works. With a lot of fine-tuning and a few cuts, it could be devastating and magnificent.”
All the elements are present for potential brilliance in this brutal story about the inner workings of the IRA, but due to a combination of some strange production choices and a slightly baggy script, it doesn’t quite come together.
Looking back at the chaos and turmoil during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Under the Black Rock highlights the messy blend of contradicting motives, lack of trust and inevitable in-fighting that took hold. Following the story of the Ryan family, we see how each member is torn apart, and their fates remoulded by actions of the IRA.
The performances are generally strong, and thankfully no-one’s struggling with the accent, which would have been wildly distracting. We begin and end with a rendition of The Dubliners’ Grace sung by Jordan Walker, which might have come across as beautifully mournful if Walker’s voice wasn’t so musical-theatre-ready. Instead, it feels a little saccharine in an otherwise grim and violent tale.
It’s a pleasure to see such a full cast at the Arcola, where one or two-person plays generally hold court. But for some reason, despite having eight people on stage, director Ben Kavangh has chosen to cast two main female roles with one actress, Flora Montgomery. Playing both the calm, head-strong IRA leader Bridget Caskey, and mother of the Ryan family, Sandra Ryan, she’s forced to play the roles to extremes, slipping between characters by merely removing her burgundy trench coat to reveal an oversized pastel cardigan. Where Bridget is understated and powerful, Sandra must inevitably be week and pathetic. At some point Sandra is referred to as “cool under fire”, but we don’t get to see any of that, because it would too closely resemble Bridget. Instead, her performance of Sandra is inevitably overwrought and wet.
Perhaps because this is loosely based on a true story, there’s a bit too much crammed in, and some of the main plot points are only glanced at. The death of Alan Ryan (Walker), for example, is only discovered in a later conversation, and I don’t think we ever hear how he actually died, which feels important given how it goes on to shape the rest of the story. Similarly, the fate of Fin McElwaine, also played by Walker, is only mentioned later, and the details never really explored.
Ceci Calf’s design sees a massive volcanic rock looming over the stage throughout. It’s effectively oppressive, if a little on the nose. The thrust staging isn’t quite used to full advantage, with a lot of the action taking place very close to the front, and long speeches given with backs turned to half the audience. It’s fine to bring the action so close if there’s enough movement, but so much of the script requires performers to stand their ground, quite literally.
This is ultimately an excellent play still in the works. With a lot of fine-tuning and a few cuts, it could be devastating and magnificent.
“This is not an easy watch by any stretch, but it’s an important one.”
“Not so long ago in a land far away…” Michael Mears begins, as though telling an old folk tale. The tragedy of Hiroshima does indeed feel like a story, so unreal in its violence and scope, so evil in its intentions. But of course, it’s not a story: On the 6th August 1945 at 8:15am, the USA dropped the first atomic bomb, killing around 100,000 citizens and injuring generations to come.
Mears’ script tells the tale from multiple perspectives- a young woman caught in the blast, the pilot who actually did the deed, and a scientist whose research was integral to the initial science that made it possible. In this way, we see, not just the catastrophic effects, but also how many people were involved in the decision, and how many opportunities they had to make a different one.
Mears and Emiko Ishii play multiple roles, swapping easily with the mere change of an accent and a different jacket. It’s easy enough to understand who is playing whom, whilst also having the effect of showing how much all of these people have in common. If one had simply been born in a different time or country, how different their destinies might have been.
The performances are generally understated, allowing the script, often verbatim, to do the talking. It’s tempting to imagine this with a full cast, but Mears and Ishii do an excellent job at keeping storylines clear and lending a different atmosphere to each character.
What with all the chopping and changing between timelines and characters, and the major occurrence happening right at the beginning, the dynamics of tension are a little erratic, but I suppose the alternative would have been a sustained tension, which would have been emotionally exhausting, even more so than this story already necessarily is.
Mark Friend’s staging is respectfully simple- a chalk board, a walking stick, and two briefcases full of costumes do all the heavy lifting. Where called for, the chalk board becomes the unsteady wings of a plane, the walking stick becomes a spade, shovelling dead bodies into a fire. The only prop that remains sacred is a small red notebook, the diary of 21-year-old Nomura Shigeko who survived the initial blast, only to become one of its victims in a slow, painful death caused by radiation.
This is not an easy watch by any stretch, but it’s an important one. Mears has found a way to communicate a catastrophe that is near unspeakable, forcing his audience to look directly at what humanity is capable of, and asking if we really learned anything from this mistake.
