Like all the best comedies, Shelagh Stephenson's play finds its laughter in the unfathomable sadness of being, in the gulf between the way things are and the way we wish and believe them to be. Her characters are recognisable, their situations representative; and, if we chuckle at their pain, it is partly because we have experienced and perhaps survived it ourselves.
Three sisters gather in a seaside house for their mother's funeral. The eldest, Mary, is a doctor with a married lover who is stuck - or is he? - with a sick wife. Next is Teresa, a businesswoman who selected her husband, Frank, from an agency catalogue, to find later that he has a repertoire of silences. And Catherine, the youngest by a big gap, knows she is attractive to men; she has, after all, slept with 78 of them, including a lovely Swiss guy who made her feel like Heidi.
All three are deeply unhappy. Mary longs for a child and may be pregnant: a matter of some complexity, as Frank has had a vasectomy. Teresa is living a lie with a man she does not understand, but she is determined to cling to her share of apparent normality. Catherine is chronically immature and usually awash with social chemicals.
Drink, drugs and misery combine to set the trio in multifaceted confrontations, leaving their men confused and angry. The interchanges are pitched larger than life, with hilariously pointed dialogue; a dimension the stage can absorb with profit. And the actors - Jane Brennan (Mary), Marion O'Dwyer (Teresa), Dawn Bradfield (Catherine), David Herlihy (Mike) and Mark O'Regan (Frank) - are exemplars of comic timing and character revelation.
I am stuck with one reservation, though. In three brief scenes the dead mother (Ruth McCabe) appears and talks to Mary, revealing family deficits and grievances. This adds something to one's knowledge of the situation, but at a price of intrusiveness and credulity strain. But let me hurriedly return to the feast, for that is what this is: a banquet of wit and disguised wisdom, fit for gourmets. Mark Lambert's impeccable direction serves it up in style.
Runs until June 30th; bookings on 01-8787222
