Jim Culleton has taken six of Maeve Binchy's short stories and transformed them into six ironic, affectionately framed episodes of angst-ridden strife among samples of Dublin's middle class in the 1980s. Directed by Culleton for Fishamble Theatre Company at breakneck speed, the result is 90 minutes of successive flashes of what, to some of us Dubliners, will seem almost surrealistic revue. Some of it is very comical, much of it with the inherent sadness of personal insecurities, and all of it displays huge creative energy from its cast of six.
In the first episode we meet Julie, working like a slave as an anonymous agony aunt (byline "Wise Advisor"), cookery columnist ("Cosy Kitchen") and shopping consultant ("Store Detective") for very little money in the misplaced and inexplicable hope that her skinflint boss, the owner of what seems like a small local weekly newspaper, will one day leave his wife and become her partner. In the second episode we find the inadequate Eileen insisting on inviting her friends Annabelle and Julian around to her home for "something simple" because she feels that they always put her to shame when they do the same to her. She then suffers a near nervous breakdown trying to juggle the beautician and the carpet-cleaners and the caterers she has engaged to prepare for the event.
Next we meet Nora and Dan, marrying late; young Susie, and her teenage love life; young Bernard, the child in a custody battle; until finally, we get Annie the history teacher, who, fed up with being the friend and counsellor of every pupil and acquaintance in her life, decides to go out and look for a problem of her own so that others may gather to comfort and counsel her. She finishes her alcoholic evening alone at home, teaching a crowd of drunks, by telephone, how to learn the words of a Roman poem.
Not all of it works. Young Bernard, for instance, lumbered with the task of narrating his own story, must work with words and notions too advanced for his natural vocabulary so that the audience may understand what is going on. Not all the cross-dressing necessitated by the gender imbalance in the cast works effectively either. Eileen's simple soiree goes too far over the top to be even surrealistically credible. But much of it goes swimmingly and the laughs are frequent and happy, some of them added satirically by some very appropriately funny costumes designed by Catherine Fay. Jenny Maher, Helen Norton, Noelle Brown, Jasmine Russell, Arthur Riordan and Sonya Kelly are the indefatigable actors who also seem always to be enjoying the fun.
In Andrew's Lane until March 31st. Booking at (01) 679 5720. Then touring in April to Draiocht Arts Centre in Blanchardstown, Dunamaise in Portlaoise, Belltable in Limerick, Backstage in Longford, Ardhowen in Enniskillen and Hawkswell in Sligo, and in May to Market Place in Armagh, Civic Theatre in Tallaght, Pavilion in Dun Laoghaire and Everyman Palace in Cork.
