Joseph Crilly's new play, staged by Tinderbox Theatre Company, offers a heady mix of ideas and emotions which never manages to meld into either the sentimental melodrama or the black farce which, at different times in the piece, seem possible.
Set in a small hall in rural Ulster, its political position indicated by the portrait of Robert Emmet on the wall above the door to the kitchen, it purports to examine the local community in recent times - after the "war".
Fra Maline has just been released from Long Kesh and his presumed daughter, Theresa, is trying to get the use of the hall for a party to celebrate his return. But Loretta Maline has just bought the hall and has persuaded Ray McCullion, an old flame, to help her do up its faded fabric.
Fra, a caricature psychopathic republican killer, seeks out his former gay partner, the wimpish Dessie, to resume their former carnal affair. Loretta has been in England and, showing signs of stress and maybe psychiatric illness, tries to rekindle her old relationship with the callous Ray. There could be several different plays in the making, each one as implausible as the others. But they never come together in what their author has structured as a series of duologues between characters whose creation has no depth, whose motivations have no clarity and whose very existence is dramatically surreal, despite the mundane banality of their words. In theatrical terms, that is not an easy means of dealing in such subjects as murder and madness, alcoholism and incest, homosexuality and Irish history.
Stephen Wright has directed the piece as if it were the most ordinary everyday reality on McQuillan's rustic hill and it simply does not work. Houston Marshall has provided a very serviceable setting of gritty realism and James C. McFetridge's lighting illuminates with clarity. But the actors have nothing persuasive to get involved in, leaving their audience in a dramatic limbo and themselves at a loss.
Continues until February 26th. To book, phone: 028 9038 1081. The play then tours to Lurgan, Enniskillen, Coleraine, Derry, Letterkenny, Sligo and Downpatrick until March 18th.