On the face of it, Conor McPherson's play is about four men and a woman in a lonely pub in Leitrim swapping ghost stories - at least until someone tells one that is the truth. It seems naturalistic but it is not literal.
Behind its careful theatrical contrivance it seeks, through metaphor and allegory, to reveal the truths of loneliness, regret and missed opportunity. It is one of the most original Irish plays in years, written precisely in a language that sounds natural yet is not, set in a place that might be recognisable yet is not real.
And, for all the humanity and comedy with which it treats it characters and its themes, it offers as bleak a vision of life as can be imagined.
The dialogue is full of long silences and unfinished sentences which trail off into ". . . well . . . you know". Brendan is the publican whose sisters, living elsewhere, might think of selling off the upper field of the farm which is hard to get the herd into but is . . . well . . . a grand spot. Jack runs a small local garage and appears to be a confirmed bachelor and drinker with just a touch of gentlemanly manners about him. Jim doesn't do much but helps Jack out with occasional jobs and Finbar, a businessman, who in his own words can "spot the gap", has just sold old Maura Nealon's old house to a young Dublin woman called Valerie who wants to move to live in the neighbourhood. But Maura's old house was built on the fairy road and there used to be tappings on the door, and so the ghost stories start.
The language, well spiced with four-letter words, is never quite explicit, but its emotional meaning is always crystal clear. It requires the closest of attention at all times and rewards such attention richly.
Ian Rickson's direction is as deliberate as the writing and underlines its theatrical intentions sometimes unnecessarily, and the five performances are exquisitely nuanced as the five drinkers get very slowly to know more about one another. Jim Norton's Jack, the most overtly mannered of the five, is spruce but carefully wary. Brendan Coyle's Brendan is sturdily dull yet truthful. Kieran Ahern's Jim is ruled by his elderly mother and almost apologetic to himself for his lack of ambition. Dermot Crowley's Finbar is probably not quite the ruthless rake and crook he might like himself to be, and Hilary Reynolds's Valerie, the catalyst in their midst, is at once strong and vulnerable. Rae Smith's set design is not dramatically helpful, tending to string the characters out across the stage, but is darkly atmospheric.
In all this is a striking, demanding and rewarding piece of original theatre which should not be missed.
Currently scheduled to run until August 12th. To book phone 01-8744045
