“The characters are convincing; menacing, sad, struggling, lost, vulnerable, and all victims in different ways”
The sky above the Jack Studio Theatre was trying to squeeze through a little evening sunshine, and was a stark contrast to the set (Dave Jones and Dan Armour) of a messy and run down apartment on stage inside. Doubling as an untidy bedsit for Tommy (David Cox) who’s struggling with an estranged wife, teenage kids and work and life in general and as a room within the Dublin house of his Uncle Maurice (Dan Armour), a man who feels he’s still bringing up the four year old child who arrived around forty years ago.
Tommy’s friend Doc (Eoin Lynch) is a frequent visitor, there to help out when needed for the next get rich quick opportunity, and often in need of shelter. Their world jogs along, they’re getting by, going nowhere, until Aimee (Bethan Boxall) crashes into their lives, escaping her past and avoiding Kenneth (Howie Ripley). From then on everything changes, with gathering pace, and in directions no one can control.
This play from Conor McPherson is rarely produced, so therefore less well known. When written in 2013, it was hailed as the Irish playwright at his compassionate best and this production tries hard to prove that point. The characters are convincing; menacing, sad, struggling, lost, vulnerable, and all victims in different ways. The story has both brutal moments and lines that made me laugh aloud. I veered from compassion to anger at characters, then back again, as their stories emerged and intertwined.
McPherson has said it was the first script he wrote after becoming sober, it altered his perception of how and why people act the way they do. As an audience you get to wonder what will happen next with a fear for the worse yet a hope for the best. The potential for everything to work out alright after all is ever-present and whether it does or not is definitely worth finding out.
“deftly humanised with well measured humour, outrage and bad language”
I have to say that on venturing out in the drizzle for this theatre visit I was anticipating something heavy and oh-so intellectual that might have proven too much for a cold Thursday evening. I mean, there is a pretty serious weight of expectation when you sit down to offerings from the man the New York Times dubbed as “possibly the finest playwright of his generation”, yet I’m happy to say that The Weir by Conor McPherson did not drag or disappoint in any way.
The single act play, set in a small bar in rural Ireland is exactly the kind of shabbily charming production that complements regional theatres so well, with gloriously stereotypical characters gently unfolding over the course of an hour or so in ways one wouldn’t have predicted from the outset. You could boil the whole thing down in summary as an entertaining five-way conversation in the pub, punctuated with stark leaps between comfortable silliness and sombre soul bearing. I found myself in giggles and shivers in equal measure.
It is an entirely captivating story about stories within stories, deftly humanised with well measured humour, outrage and bad language. If you have ever found yourself spending a lot of time either side of the bar in a small town pub then the scene and the players will feel distinctly familiar, even if the subject matter doesn’t.
The cast all do wonderfully, though the show is somewhat stolen by Sean Murray’s portrayal of cantankerous old bastard Jack, tearing constant strips off flashy Finbar, played with an affable, awkward edge by Louis Dempsey. The old goat and the young(er) pretender trade blows and showboat throughout the eighty odd minutes of action, nicely supported by the contrasting knitwear clad background shufflers, Jim and Brendan. John O’Dowd is appealing and understated as Jim and Sam O’Mahony plays a marvellous turn as the long suffering landlord Brendan who shrugs his way through the evening pouring the drinks and correcting the balance of comfort and grumpiness in his patrons. He is as much a part of the scenery as the bar set (Madeleine Girling) itself; the cosy host providing warmth but remaining a smidge too rugged to be completely cuddly. Natalie Radmall-Quirke is equally fun, strong and melancholy as new girl and gossip point, Valerie, a role that I imagine could become dull very easily with too much leaning towards classic girly sympathy bids which she has avoided quite elegantly.
The triumph of both the writing and performance of The Weir is in the contradiction; going from fairies and weddings, to horror and tragedy, without ever rocking the boat enough to realise how completely the mood is shifting until you are laughing out loud when you thought you were about to have a quiet cry. Although it is far from a simple, the base element of a need to connect with those around us and turn out our own tales is so universal that the appeal should extend to all. It is a really wonderful and easy play and I don’t hesitate to give it full marks.
Reviewed by Jenna Barton
Photography by Marc Brenner
THE WEIR
is at The Mercury Theatre, Colchester until 16th September
