Gatman!
Everyman, Cork
★★★☆☆
Explosive, inventive imagery propels the narrative of Everyman’s presentation of Tadhg Hickey’s monologue in Gatman! The rapid fusion of speech and antic activity is further animated – almost dominated – by video insertions skating across the background. The effect is like living inside a scan of a damaged brain. That’s where Hickey has invited us to go in this exposition of inebriation as something joyous. Here is a drunkard who enjoys being drunk, and the exclamation mark in the title is a reminder of the exuberance alcohol can provoke.
The title also provides the tale: Gat, whether or not it deserves the capital letter, is said to be a Cork term for drink. Hickey depicts a man drowning in cider and drenched in the sweat of other people. Sordid as this might seem, the telling has the comedy of self-awareness. Its fantasies are ridiculous even as they develop, and Gatman understands and exploits their logic of self-forgiveness. In a world turning upside down, or at least inside out, he decides that his critics, like his bewildered mother, are wrong and that he is blameless, speculating that it might have been the mums who were changed in the maternity hospital rather than the babies.
Monologue this may be, but it is not unpeopled. Mimicry is one of Hickey’s many talents, and Robert, his Jack Russell terrier, gives condolence and counsel. Counsel comes also from Fr Mathew, the apostle of temperance, speaking from his plinth on Patrick Street in an effort to convert, or thwart, this jiving apostle of intemperance, while the golden angel trumpeting from the spires of St Fin Barre’s Cathedral drops a golden naggin into Gatman’s hands.
Less useful are meetings at Alcoholics Anonymous that Gatman attends to be allowed contact with his young son. That this is wishful thinking is quickly demonstrated by a wreckage of the furniture in the meeting room and the embrace, or entrapment, of a booze-fuelled frenzy of music and dancing.
The unfailing physical skill required for so much sustained activity is measured perfectly by director Sophie Motley. The coalition of Stephen Dodd, Brian Lane, Conan McIvor and Arran Mac Gabhann results in swaying filmic screening flaming with comic-book headlines and enhanced by a playlist that begs for attribution.
While Hickey initially employs an endearingly confessional tone, the piece falters as it gathers its darkness. This shift should be a strength of the play – and would be were it not for geography. Episodes are recalled by their location in a navigation of streets, hills, bridges, buildings and monuments. As most of the audience at the Everyman know these neighbourhoods, they carry no resonance except for Hickey’s own story of addiction.
It must be added that the itinerary omits any notable reference to Palestine, yet during the closure’s inevitable standing ovation there it is: the flag unfurled against Hickey’s chest like an emblem, but of what? Have we been thinking of Palestine throughout this performance? The thought itself unfurls like an accusation, casting the play in an altogether different debate.
Gatman! is at the Everyman, Cork, until Saturday, August 31st, then runs at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, from Friday, September 6th, to Saturday, September 10th
