Patrick Lonergan saw The Walworth Farce at the Town Hall in Galway

The Walworth Farce Town Hall, Galway

In a decrepit London flat, three men are preparing to perform a play. Dinny (Denis Conway), the director, author and lead actor, is doing jumping jacks to warm up. His eldest son Blake (Garrett Lombard) is ironing his costume - a garish skirt and blouse. His other son Sean (Aaron Monaghan) glances anxiously towards his father, then puts on a fake moustache.

These opening moments of Enda Walsh's stunning new play for Druid Theatre present all the standard features of theatrical farce: speedy exits and entrances, surprising plot developments, cross-dressing, and exaggerated characterisation. We soon learn, however, that Dinny's play is not a comedy, but a deeply disturbed re-imagining of his banishment from Cork years before - and that he has forced his sons to perform in this play, day after day, since their childhood.

The Walworth Farce is thus a distinctly theatrical work. Like Murphy's Bailegangaire, it explores the need to tell - and retell - a story. Like Pinter's Homecoming, it explores gender and power in a disturbingly domestic setting. And like Hamlet, it uses a play-within -a-play to explore and celebrate the power of performance.

But what's exciting is how, under the direction of Mikel Murfi, this production develops Walsh's work. As usual, his language is beautiful - sometimes breathtaking. And he again reveals a knack for making unlikeable characters sympathetic. However, with the accidental arrival to the flat of Hayley (Syan Blake), Walsh is adding a new element to his writing: realism.

Hayley is a normal person, which means that, as the audience begins to see Dinny's paranoid fantasies from her perspective, what had been comic now seems grotesque. This gives a bitingly provocative edge to the characters' use of crude make-up and costume to represent gender and, particularly, race. And it adds poignancy to the play's finale, performed in near silence by Monaghan, who stands out in a terrific ensemble. The commitment, intensity, and comedic skill of director and cast ultimately make The Walworth Farce an unsettling but exhilarating blend of the hilarious with the horrifying.

Runs until Sat, then moves to Cork and Dublin

Patrick Lonergan