By rights, since the title of Michelle Read's The Other Side has a literal meaning, the play ought to be reviewed by two different critics. Each member of the audience sees only one aspect of the action, though what is happening on the far side of the curtain that divides the Project's Cube space in two is audible.
The Other Side
Project Arts Centre
The point of the piece, devised by Read with director Tara Derrington and Natalie Stringer who plays one of the two women in the cast, is not so much what is seen as the effect of what is not.
The audience is divided apparently at random, with each member given a colour-coded ticket. The reds enter on one side of the space, the whites on the other. On my side, there is Stringer, playing a hard-bitten English photographer who has been incarcerated for her own safety in what looks like a schoolroom during an apparent coup attempt in an unnamed southern hemisphere country. From the far side of the curtain, we can hear the well-to-do Irish businesswoman Dervla, played by Síle Nic Chonaonaigh, who is caught up in the same crisis. As the women talk and establish some kind of relationship without ever seeing each other, we can follow the dialogue but only in the knowledge that one side of it is not validated by any visual information.
This, then, is not so much a drama as a thought experiment or a psychological game. It is a good game, however.
The tensions generated by the situation of the audience add value to what would otherwise be a slight if well-turned 45-minute piece, allowing it to be sustained over twice that length. Plotting, that might otherwise be crude to the point of being utterly incredible, becomes subtle and intriguing.
The cleverness lies in the interplay of lies and truth, the exploitation of our unconscious tendency to use visual information to check the veracity of what we are told. Those of us on my side of the divide can tell that Stringer's beautifully realised Kate is telling lies a lot of the time. The physical description of herself that she gives Dervla is not what we are seeing in front of us, for example. And because of this, something else happens: we begin to have similar doubts about Dervla's assertions but this time without being able to check them visually. We become intensely aware of how much actors - and by extension people we encounter in our daily lives - communicate by silent expressions and gestures: a look in the eyes, a faint smile on the lips, a shrug of the shoulders.
All of this gets an added twist as the stories of Dervla and Kate begin to emerge. Dervla is in this part of the world because she is looking for her long-lost identical twin who disappeared when they were both eight years old. Kate, meanwhile, was adopted at about the same age, and has no memory of her earlier childhood and no knowledge of her birth parents.
In an ordinary play, the obvious possibility that Kate and Dervla are in fact twins would be an absurd coincidence, but here it is a nicely sardonic tease. Part of you wants to solve the mystery by looking behind the curtain to see if the women really are identical. But, of course, this would be childish. We know that these are actors and that they are not actually sisters, never mind twins. And in any case, we also know that these characters tell lies, so it is entirely possible that the whole question is based on false assumptions.
All of this raises, in a gentle, humorous and utterly unpretentious way, interesting questions about knowledge and language, reality and representation, fact and fiction. Cleverly conceived and executed with aplomb, The Other Side may be an intellectual exercise, but like all good exercise it is invigorating. - Fintan O'Toole
Runs until August 30th
Shock & Awe
Belltable, Limerick
Mike Finn's adaptation of Homer's The Iliad is more in the nature of an invasion, predatory in intent and ruthless in execution. His title is multi-layered, directed at war in general and, perhaps, his own irreverence in particular.
He is certainly out to have fun, an intention signalled by a comic preamble that slides imperceptibly into the main story. The main characters are Achilles, Hector and Helen, but each of the trio of actors takes on a host of others of mixed provenance and sexes. For instance, Achilles switches to a boxing commentator, Helen to a TV hostess and Hector to Aphrodite. The shifts of identity are prolific.
If this manic note were sustained throughout the play, it would at least be clear where we stand with it. But interspersed with the farce - or vice versa? - there are scenes of undiluted drama and tragedy. Hector and his wife talk about his imminent death, and of the perspectives of man and woman on the killing and its genesis. It ends with Hector's death and mutilation; not a light-hearted finale.
The dialogue and action are littered with deliberate anachronisms that work well in the cause of laughter, but not otherwise. Battle scenes are filled with references to spears, but modern automatics are the actual weapons; not a palpable hit. That old devil, the suspension of disbelief, takes something of a hammering. The author really can't have his cake and eat it.
Paul Brennan's direction comes across as a faithful delivery of the script, as do the energetic and talented performances of Miceal McBrian, Cormac Costello and the interesting Anna Olson, who do impressive battle with their manifold roles to earn enthusiastic applause. Mike Finn's script is certainly bold, inventive and funny when it chooses to be; but he needs to iron out the wrinkles. - Gerry Colgan
Runs to August 30th
