The original impetus for this trilogy of monolgues, exploring the mores of Irish men, came from Rattlebag director Shane Crossan's re-reading of Dermot Bolger's In High Germany.
Constructed around the return home to Hamburg of a youngish Irish football tourist after Ireland's defeat in the 1988 European Cup, Bolger's play attempts to fix male Irishness in something more immediate and relevant than political and social myths. Eoin, its protagonist, played with wonderful, at times poignant verve by actor Seβn Mack, achieves a real sense of what it means to be Irish on the terraces after his team's defeat - at least momentarily. And the tortuous road to this epiphany involves a feast of drinking, lunatic incidents and vividly recaptured memories that encapsulate the common experience of a generation.
The two other pieces, More or Less? and Ticking Over, involve the depredations of two very different, contemporary characters. Written by Michael McCudden, the latter comprises the crude reminiscences of a small-town idiot, Tom, whose heart, if he has one at all, is nothing but a muscular 24-valve, six-cylinder engine with sports suspension. Played with huge gusto by Jim Roche, Tom is a car fanatic whose sense of self is completely defined by what he's driving. Cars mean girls and, though both slip through his sweaty fingers, he manages, through various ludicrous humiliations, to achieve some insight into his position in life.
In More or Less?, all that Mullen - the character created by Fair City scriptwriter Seβn Moffat - cares about is money and sex. The pursuit of these is increasingly disturbed by mysterious nocturnal phone calls which, by the end of the piece, attain the chilling persistence of the small voice of conscience.
In a brilliant performance, actor Stuart Roche manages to bring intimate colour and sparkle to what is very much the stereotypical yuppie, self-righteously hedonistic and hysterically amoral. I'd be surprised if any male didn't experience a shudder of recognition.
Each piece, though able to stand on its own legs, puts on extra weight and significance when seen in the context of the others. And whatever insights we might get into the Irish male psyche, the three plays offer an entertaining juxtaposition of types, a kind of desanctified triptych in which today's men might just glimpse a part of themselves.
Runs until September 1st
