Mai O'Hara, nee Kirwin, is lying in a bed in Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin dying of liver cancer and recalling in memory and hallucination a life of unrealised expectations. The structure and context of Sebastian Barry's new play is, in theatrical terms, dangerously similar to those of The Steward of Christendom which had the inestimable benefit of a totally great performance by Donal McCann. But here there is the different benefit of Sinead Cusack's Mai, feisty and fearful, surrounded by her memories and the "reality" of husband Jack, daughter Joanie and a sympathetically efficient nursing sister, yet alone in her dying and, in the end, not gaining redemption.
She married the wrong man and they lived in the wrong place and Mai, once a bundle of energy, athletic and musical and vital, fell into alcoholism. Jack was a sailor, a soldier in the British army, an engineer in Africa and in Sligo, and maybe it was the boredom that got her more than the drink. Their baby son died and Jack blamed her without justification yet she blamed herself and drink.
She was always more attached to her dead Dada, but even her conjurings of his memory as she lies in hospital room bring her only brief solace. His concerned cousin Maria, her friend and supporter conjured from the past, also seems to fail to help.
As ever, Mr Barry's writing is lucid and beautiful, his mood elegaic and deeply sympathetic. Huge monologues are carried effortlessly and seem only momentary. Direct conversations are more brittle and indirect. The play and the performances demand constant and diligent attention which is richly rewarded. Sinead Cusack is fragile yet belligerently strong and deeply touching.
Catherine Cusack as her daughter Joanie is every bit as strong as we are led to believe her mother was when younger. Andrea Irvine is humanly close, yet perfectly professionally distanced as the nurse, and Harry Towb and June Watson flesh out richly the shadows of Dada and his cousin from the past. Nigel Terry, despite occasional accentual problems and an uneasy start, manages in the end to be a perfect foil for the failing feisty Mai and Max Stafford-Clark directs with perfect clarity and pace in a setting by Julian McGowan which doesn't quite echo Jervis Street hospital but is wholly acceptable theatrically. The production is staged jointly by the Royal National Theatre and Out of Joint, and very well staged at that.
Runs into July. To book phone 0044 171 4523000
