It's a common enough conceit. Take a handful of historical figures who never actually met, put them on a stage, light the fuse and stand well back. In Mutabilitie, Frank McGuinness gives us Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare. Sadly, although sparks occasionally fly, there are no real fireworks.
Theatre is the ultimate crucible of the great What If, and theatre itself plays a central role in McGuinness's drama. Shakespeare arrives in Ireland to try his luck at bringing a bit of culture to the Elizabethan colony. Set upon by a gang of gaels, WS escapes capture by falling into a convenient pond, from whence he is hauled to safety by Fine (a fiery Aisling O'Sullivan), the local wise woman, maid-of-all-work and spy at the Spenser castle. (The author of The Faerie Queen did indeed spend nearly 20 years in the service of Elizabeth I in west Cork).
Fine believes the handsome Englishman spouting poetry at the flutter of an eyelid ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day . . .") is Ireland's longed-for saviour: through the power of the theatre, the poet, closet Catholic and "molly" will tell Ireland's story and convince the English of the error of their ways.
McGuinness magpies his way around Spenser, Shakespeare, Irish myth and theatrical convention with postmodern insouciance. Yet nothing connects. WS speaks in cherry-picked quotes; he and Spenser exchange words but not ideas; the gang of gaels, headed by a barking King Sweney (Cymbeline meets Lear) and Queen Maeve (Lady Macbeth with heart), veer dangerously close to whimsy. None of this is helped by the banal realism of Monica Frawley's set design - a barren rockscape complete with stream and aforementioned pond - and Trevor Nunn's pedestrian direction. The contemporary banter of WS's player chums is more Shakespearian comic relief than Stoppardian ironic chorus.
Mutabilitie is an ambitious play, attempting to put the English/Irish conflict in historical and philosophical context, yet in its often jarring muddle of character, language and history, it only succeeds in reinforcing age-old stereotypes.