Three Short Plays
Gate Theatre
Of the three new plays at the Gate, the last, in this review, shall be first, simply because it is. Brian Friel has returned to his beloved Chekhov for The Yalta Game, the story of an accountant who holidays alone, leaving wife and family behind in Moscow. While away, he plays the game of amorous dalliance and seduction, and this time happens on a young wife with her pet dog. They have their fling and part forever, as always. But back home, both find themselves obsessed by reveries. They meet again and embark on a future of duplicity and ecstasy, perhaps of love. Ciarβn Hinds and Kelly Reilly are immense as the couple surprised by an unexpected passion, and Karel Reisz directs them with a maestro's touch.
Conor McPherson's Come On Over is monologue-based, here delivered by a Jesuit and a widow who runs a guesthouse. They had a fling in their youth, but he went on to become a Jesuit while she had a life of marriage and family. Now he is back to investigate a possible miracle. The pair, played with authority by Jim Norton and Dearbhla Molloy, wear masks and their words explore their lives apart and together. Embedded in them are issues of faith, faded lust and betrayal, but they lack clarity, like much else that is masked in the play, directed by the author. It leaves the residual sense of a purpose unrealised.
Finally to Neil Jordan's White Horses, in which a woman, swimming too far out to sea to investigate the waves, turns back from death to tell her partner on the shore that she no longer loves him. He finds a tape of her session with a psychic, a fanciful vocal creation, and complications ensue. The woman's unreal dialogue is laden with imagery, and the other men talk around her unconvincingly. Catherine McCormack and Peter McDonald, again directed by the author, hold their ground.
In these last two plays, I fervently wished for a replay facility. Lacking this, I have to settle for the limitations in my transient understandings, but I disclaim responsibility for that.
Gerry Colgan
Runs until November 17th
Rose Rage, Part 1
O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College
This is high-order Shakespeare. Setting their play in what appears to be the locker room of an abattoir, Roger Warren and Edward Hall (who also directs) have compressed the three parts of Henry VI into a two-part drama that resonates with contemporary menace.
As Henry VI is propped on the throne - with Harry Five, lately deceased, "too famous to live long" - England erupts into a power struggle, starting with low-key dissent over roses, white and red, and culminating in the intent of Jack Cade (the riveting Tony Bell), a barrow boy, to overthrow literacy and lordship. We are treated to an appalling vision of anarchy that combines civil and sectarian unrest with xenophobic mob rule.
The production has an intelligent energy that never palls. The cast of 12 - all male, incidentally, with a nod towards custom and practice at the original Globe - is constantly in view on Michael Pavelka's muscular set. The adaptation has rendered the complexities of the original chronicle both lucid and economic.
Henry, played with effete clarity by Jonathan McGuinness, doesn't stand a chance. He is engulfed by the conniving Bishop of Winchester (Chris Myles) and the fractious warlords Gloucester (Matthew Flynn), York (Guy Williams) and Somerset (Simon Scardifield).
His only protector is Queen Margaret (played by Robert Hands, who allows his portrayal to incline towards the termagant of the later plays, without opting for the easy, more camp route).
The narrative is carried at intervals by men in stained white coats and face masks, startling and intimidating. The language, powerfully spoken, is accompanied by the rasping of butchers' knives and cleavers. By the end we gaze at chaos: raw meat, smashed cabbages, blood and spittle. It makes for thrilling, total theatre. I cannot wait to see the second half.
Derek West
Runs until Saturday; Part 1 is on tomorrow at 8 p.m., and on Friday and Saturday at 3 p.m.; Part 2 is on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.
