Frank McGuinness's new play is one of his most ambitious and complex works (at least since his stunning Observe the Sons of Ulster), set in Buncrana during the second World War when the Irish Army was supposedly protecting our neutrality along the border and the British and American armies were based in Derry fighting to defeat Naziism.
The site of the drama is the West household where the widowed Rima West is drinking too much and having too much fun to rein in her raunchy language and direct speech. Her daughter, Dolly, has returned from Italy and now runs the house kitchen, happy to offer meals to all who arrive or are brought to the house. Rima's other daughter, Esther, is having difficulties with her marriage to Sergeant Ned Horgan of the Irish Army, in which institution he serves under Rima's son Justin who is choked with a blind hatred of the English.
Alec Redding, an old flame of Dolly's, is serving with the British army in Derry as a liaison officer with the US forces based there, two of whom are brought home by Rima for dinner after a drinking session in a pub in Buncrana. So arrive Marco Delavicario, an overt homosexual and his US army colleague whom he calls cousin, Jamie O'Brien. Young Anna Owens, an illegitimate child raised by the nuns nearby, helps Dolly in the kitchen and is kept in what he sees as her social place in the house by Sergeant Ned. But Anna takes a lusty fancy to Jamie.
Jamie, however, may have designs on Esther and it doesn't take the flamboyant Marco long to suss out that the hateful Justin may be of a similar sexual orientation to himself. In theory, this group of sexually forthright, sexually unfulfilled, sexually unhappy and sexually ambitious people could explode all over the lively dinner table to provide the literal drama on the stage.
But the author wants to compare and contrast the loyalties and enmities in the dinner party with the loyalties and enmities of the parties engaged in, or neutral in the world war. Here he falls into a logical fallacy which is ultimately lethal to his drama. Sexual love or hate is not comparable to love or hate of country, so that to compare (as is tried at the end) the resolution of sexual relationships with the end of the war is merely sentimental, even if McGuinness has provided a wealth of challenging insights into social attitudes and military objectives as he weaves his complex web of words along the way.
The writing is strong, whether coarse or touching, along that way. But there is no persuasive conclusion nor any semblance of catharsis at the end.
Pauline Flanagan's feisty Rima is strong, knowing, shocking and loving all the way along and offers the performance of the night. Donna Dent is strong, independent and upright but, thanks to the unyielding script she has been given, too enigmatic by miles. Catherine Byrne's Esther smoulders with resentment but (that script again) seems unable to show us just why she is like that.
Lucianne McEvoy's Anna Owens is suitably pert, even when verbally slapped down by Simon O'Gorman's otherwise apparently amiable and unassertive Ned. Michael Colgan's Justin is far too far over the top when angry in his hatred and far too limply narcissistic when Perry Laylon Ojeda's Mark makes his first tentative sexual advance, urging Justin not to lose his hatred. Anthony Calf's Alec is too much of a caricature nice English chap (script again) and Harry Carnahan's Jamie has too few words or actions to make much significant impact.
Patrick Mason's direction seems efficiently mechanical but distant from the heart of the action, most of which is dwarfed by Joe Vanek's vast bare set with a small kitchen set down at its centre, quite unsympathetic to the fabric or the time or indeed the content of the play.
Runs until November 20th. To book phone 01-8787222
