DOWN in Co Kerry, a film is being shot standard Hollywood studio fare, earnestly telling a deep and meaningful tale of post famine love across the peat bogs. Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn were out of work, out of luck and out of ideas until the opportunity came along to be extras in the glamorous world of movie making. Gorgeous women, plenty of booze, cocaine on tap, your name in lights and forty quid a day into your hand ... you couldn't be bad to that.
In the first act of her new play for DubbelJoint Productions, Marie Jones has great fun with the greedy, immoral world of American film making, creating, with wit and relish, a scenario with which Ireland has become very familiar. The juggernaut rolls into town, sets up camp, spends loads of money in local businesses, endlessly drills its human camera fodder in silent cutaway shots, gobbles up the glorious scenery before the weather changes and its multi million dollar budget hits the dust - and moves out.
But when real life tragedy descends - a young drug addict, the son of a bankrupt farmer, drowns himself - the fun ends abruptly and, in its over long second act, the play takes on a notably harder edged significance, whereby a rather more worthy film script emerges and the repercussions of a succession of contemporary social and economic disasters begin to spread their ripples.
Under Pam Brighton's direction, Conleth Hill, as wet behind the ears Charlie from Tyrone, and Tim Murphy as Jake, the cute Kerryman recently returned from America broke and homesick, perform with tremendous assurance, skilfully filling in the roles of cast and production crew as they go along. But, while their individual efforts never miss a beat, the focus of this potentially tantalising play needs some sharpening and defining. The real protagonist is introduced only fleetingly and, when his moment - finally arrives, it comes tumbling out with less coherence than will doubtless be the case when this fluent, spirited production finds its feet.
