The New Theatre, Dublin

This new production of Brendan Behan’s

The Quare Fellow

begins with a short historical introduction that has the effect of freezing the play in time. From the outset we are not encouraged to engage empathetically with the play – to mediate upon the nature of the death penalty, the uniform masculinity imposed on men within the prison system, or the hierarchies of power that exist within all social microcosms – but to value instead its 1954 setting, when it marked the beginning of Behan’s playwriting career.

This suggests a lack of faith in the play itself, or a lack of confidence in the elements assembled for this production by director Ronan Wilmot, to capture the best qualities of Behan’s work. The success of

The Quare Fellow

lies in its dialogue, which is built around anecdotes that rise to crescendoing punch-lines, and in its structure; the way in which a wide range of characters (prisoners and prison guards) wander through the scenes, giving a sense of a whole world shrunk upon the stage.

In Wilmot’s production, the cast of 28 is stripped back to 13, immediately diluting the sense of oppression, and yet the stage (a flat grey brick wall with high-lit windows designed by Peter McPoland) is thrust so far forward towards the audience that the 13 actors barely have room to comfortably move, while the establishment of separate spheres for asides and private conversations is rendered impossible. Mark Wheatley’s lighting design does little to help define what are supposed to be discrete areas within the confined space of the prison. We thus have no sense of the urgency of the power dynamics at play.

Some of the young actors struggle with articulation throughout the 75-minute show; others over articulate, playing up Behan’s bawdy humour to deny any pathos to the characters’ incumbent fate. Ultimately this results in a production that is sadly devoid of any tension. An unnecessary interval between Acts One (60 minutes) and Two (15 minutes) does little to help matters and when the production fizzles out with the Quare Fellow’s hanging, the audience are singing along to the play’s anthem instead of contemplating the greater issues at stake.