Forced Upon Us

Anger can be a powerfully energising force in theatre when it is constrained within the discipline of a tightly constructed drama…

Anger can be a powerfully energising force in theatre when it is constrained within the discipline of a tightly constructed drama. But this work by Brenda Murphy and Christine Poland, staged by Dubbeljoint in conjunction with the Justus Community Theatre Company from West Belfast, recognises no dramatic constraints so that its evident anger merely seethes over the very user-unfriendly ramps and platforms in a form which has little theatrical shape or dramatic purpose. Conflict (in this instance the conflict that was built into the Northern Ireland State) is purportedly the subject of the work, but there is no dramatic conflict because there is no dramatic structure and not even the redoubtable Pam Brighton's direction can impose a structure on a dramatically shapeless polemic.

The towering ramped setting from the West Belfast Artists' Collective is extraordinarily unsympathetic to the establishment of any flow, with ramps at so steep a slope that the players must tread carefully to protect themselves from falling. Even the narrative flow of the authors' account of how the State was founded is interrupted by static ballads which add nothing to the story and so impede it.

How much more effectively the political message might have been put across theatrically had the authors managed to write a play with some kind of dramatic structure, rather than the characterless pageant that was staged, must remain a matter of surmise.

Runs until September 16th, nightly at 8.15 p.m. To book phone 018554090