Irish Times writers review the latest offerings from the arts world.
This Conversation Is Over Andrews Lane Studio, Dublin.
Mark Nagle's first play is certainly ambitious, and, if it doesn't quite hit the bull's-eye, his aim is still accurate enough to pepper the target. It has two characters, Stephen and Marion, but multiplied by three; we see them brought to life by six actors at different stages in their lives, in their twenties, thirties and fifties.
The first and youngest pairing, lovers for four years, are in trouble. He hates his job in insurance, and wants to be a writer, encouraged by some story successes. But she is pregnant and wants marriage. Next they are together, apparently married in Dublin, but things are not good between them. She has been diagnosed with a serious illness, and they keep harking back to some divisive event 10 years before.
Then they turn up in a cafe, apparently celebrating their wedding anniversary. He is cynical and matter of fact; she is frustrated by his lack of concern. It seems like an appropriate ending, but is all about to start again, with new twists to the story. Now we learn that he fled to London to avoid wedlock, but ended as a failed writer in a lowly job. Ten years later, she married someone else.
There is more of the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't stitched into the play's unwinding. Much of it is intriguing and persuasive, but at times the different scenarios contradict each other, mutually exclusive rather than offering imaginative alternatives. These tend to jolt the audience from acceptance of the basic structure. That said, the author (also director) is clearly creative, writes good dialogue and motivates the cast - himself, Sarah Byrne, Neill Fleming, Yvonne Usher, Aidan Jordan and Phyllis Carthy - to credible performances. An interesting debut. Gerry Colgan
Until Mar 11
Trainspotting.Grand Opera House, Belfast
When Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting exploded onto the stage in 1995, it signalled the massed invasion of a new brand of theatre-goer and a huge increase in lager sales in foyer bars. His cursing, vomiting, defecating tribute to Thatcher's Britain hit the polite arts world like a shot in the arm, upping the ante on the angry, in-your-face plays of writers such as Trevor Griffiths and Howard Brenton 20 years earlier.
Another decade on, it would be easy to say that its characters and their situations have been overtaken by society's more sophisticated acceptance of drugs. But a vigilant stroll through any city centre contradicts that view, exposing hopeless, strung-out people on the road to nowhere but the grave. The bleak housing estates of the suburb of Leith are a far cry from the Edinburgh of the Festival, the Castle and Princes Street - and these trainspotters are well aware that they come from a different planet.
Director and adaptor Harry Gibson, who was instrumental in the original journey from page to stage, skilfully draws out every political nuance, every grim joke and surreal, dope-induced hallucination. In this new revival, he works a subtle turn in bringing Peter Milne's beautifully judged Renton from sly, jack-the-lad user to full-on confrontation with his own life.
But while Renton careers his way toward the light at the end of the tunnel, others, such as Ruaraidh Murray's sweet-natured Tommy, Laura Harvey's victimised Alison and Brian Alexander's head-banging Franco, tragically fail to find the Big Answer, falling prey to sickening humiliations on their descent of the downward slope. Go to Trainspotting prepared for graphic descriptions and re-enactments of just about every conceivable bodily function, for seriously rough language - the "c" word is used 147 times, usually as a laddish term of endearment - and for its uncompromising portrayal of the unglamorous world of drug addiction. But go, too, for laughter, warmth, poignancy, friendship and a great musical trip through the music of Pink Floyd, Lou Reed and The Proclaimers. Jane Coyle
Until Mar 4
