There will be strobe, warns Peter Crawley
Warning: the following show contains scenes that some viewers may find offensive. There will be scenes of an adult nature although you'll have to guess if we mean that in the hot'n'heavy sense or the long, tortuous and fully clothed state-of-the-nation sense. Either interpretation will have a marked effect on our box office.
There will be strobe lighting. This effect can be dangerous for people who suffer from epilepsy and merely annoying to everyone else. Our play about the brutality of modern warfare will contain gunshots, loud explosions, simulated violence, a searing exposure of man's inhumanity to man, and a fearless interrogation of how the military industrial complex makes us all complicit in the world's endless cycles of violence. But you are most likely to complain about the swearing. Sorry. There will be bad language.
Now, about the on-stage urination. Our safety officer has looked into the matter and, strictly speaking, there are no health risks. The choreographer assures us it's justified. The eastern European avant-garde director assures us it has a symbolic value. The publicist assures us that, biologically, it's not much different from watching an actor cry. The actor assures us he has laid off the asparagus. Joe Duffy assures us he'll approach the debate with an open mind.
While we're at it, we should come clean about a few other things: The show you are about to see had script problems from day one. Viewers are cautioned that plotting is shaky, the second act drags on remorselessly and some of the Russian accents are bad, verging on racist.
Without wishing to ruin anything, this play, an exquisite exercise in the generation of suspense that hinges, crucially, on whether one of the two characters will shoot the other, contains a gunshot at the end. Viewers are urged to act surprised.
As for our forthcoming shows, Oedipus Rex contains unwitting incest and eye-gouging. Hamlet contains an Oedipal complex but no eye-gouging. King Lear contains no Oedipal complex but some eye-gouging. Saved contains no eye-gouging but some baby killing. Blasted contains all the above.
Gelotophobics are advised the show contains the following punch lines: "Terrible!" "Don't forget the coffee!" and "I didn't ask for a 12" pianist!" As Druid said of The Empress of India, this play is not suitable for children. Actually, as the Abbey said of Saved and Big Love, it's strictly suitable for over 16s. This ought to immediately boost the play's appeal to our nation's more demanding 15-year-olds, who are more important than ever in a sluggish economy. New policy: 15-year-olds must be accompanied by at least seven adults.
In our theatre you are welcome to pre-order interval drinks from the bar. Please enjoy our bar sensibly. Then again, you could always just have a coffee. (Warning: Contents hot!)
A final word to our more sensitive and litigious viewers: you could always sit this one out. To the rest of you, in the cautionary words of one American theatre director, Something May Happen.
You have been warned.
pcrawley@irish-times.ie
