Amelia
Cube, Project Arts Centre, Dublin
★★★★★
Somewhere in the near future, the residents of a farm on the west coast have seen it all: a world blighted by erratic weather and widespread infectious disease that has returned to a predigital era of radio-wave technology, and where several species of animal have disappeared. Dee Roycroft’s ingenious play Amelia could be considered dystopian; society as we know it has gone through a meltdown.
The pessimism doesn’t get everyone down. When Davy (John Cronin) receives an unexpected visit from his sister, Jan (Claire J Loy), an ornithologist travelling the world, it isn’t long before we hear the familiar rhythms of family, the noisy argument of siblings talking over each other, as if the gloom isn’t the only thing to speak about. “Oh, you’re a bore!” Jan yells when Davy accuses her of underestimating his parenting situation as father of a neurodiverse teenager (Bláithín Mac Gabhann).
Enda, in Mac Gabhann’s superb performance, is a perfect picture of young frustration: quick to back-talk, annoyed with their hometown and resenting an overprotective father who won’t let them go see the world. They are also the play’s most insightful character. When Jan – who becomes dedicated to restoring destroyed bird habitats on the farm – expresses concern about Enda’s survival skills on the road, the teenager seems more interested in a version of the future we haven’t seen yet: “The birds aren’t coming back, you know. None of it is coming back.”
That’s not to say this is a straight-up depiction of the future without leaps in imagination. At one point an unexpected animal – a flying pig, proof that everything impossible has happened – is found on the farm. When Davy disapproves of them caring for the animal (which they nickname Amelia Earhart), viewing it as defective and freakish, it rattles Enda’s insecurities about their neurodiversity.
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Roycroft’s play is interested not only in a vision of the future but also in how we will experience those stories in a world where theatre infrastructure collapses. One stirring scene where Enda is seen dancing alone in the kitchen abruptly ends in blackout, with the cast coming out to explain that they’ve run out of power. (“Theatre has reached its carbon quota for the evening,” someone explains.) In the dark, they discuss options to switch plays, as if one of the postapocalyptic theatre troupes from Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play.
That also allows us to see Claire O’Reilly’s artful production revert to a previous century’s way of working, as the play continues with the assistance of old-school devices. Enda’s stirring vision for themself, as a young person seizing the world’s experiences, is delivered against the loudening clang of a thunder-sheet, while a pedal-powered generator makes the stage lights build towards brilliance.
There is courage in facing the future, whether in choosing to hold on to theatre’s magic or in a withheld father’s touching expression of love to his child. (Cronin gives his best performance.) “It’s a broken world, but it’s f**king beautiful,” Enda says. “And it’s mine.”
Continues at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Saturday, October 5th
