Cloakroom: A gorgeous slice of adolescence about to blossom into new possibilities

Cloakroom

The Shed at Galway Docks

★★★★☆

Over by the wall, under one of the rails of coats, is a lone, abandoned mirror ball. We’re in the cloakroom of the Crystal Ballroom, with Grace, a 19-year-old woman who’s working there. It’s the edge of a place of love of sorts, amid the bodies looking for grabs in the ballroom, and she is on the cusp of a gentler love of her own.

This is the 10th in the Rooms series of immersive theatre installations written and directed by Enda Walsh, and made with Paul Fahy for Galway International Arts Festival. This is 1972, and the room created within an old storage shed on the city’s docks has the characteristic attention to period detail of the previous installations.

The tatty, dimly lit cloakroom is through an arch off the hall, with a half-door counter. Cloakroom tickets are 5 pence, a sign reads. There’s a Superser, a stack of Woman magazines, an open lipstick. The carpet needs a vacuum, and on the walls are a wrought-metal mirror and posters for bands, and for the Sweepstakes. Coloured lights and sounds pulse through the blurred glass of the doors into the ballroom.

Galway International Arts Festival: the cloakroom features a Superser, a stack of Woman magazines and an open lipstick

Six people at a time sit on benches in the enclosed room to eavesdrop on Grace in the cloakroom, voiced with intimacy and openness by Zara Devlin. She tells us her story, about gossip and its corrosive effect over several years on the shy child and teenage girl, and how “small stories that ruined what kissin’ might be for me” lead to her disappearing even further into her own company. Walsh’s gorgeous 15-minute script is a slice of adolescence about to blossom into new possibilities. “Why not the soft heart, the sweet kiss, the kind love? Why not a place for someone who’s quiet?”