IF Declan Hughes's new play Hallowe'en Night, were to have a sub title, it might reasonably be taken from a line delivered by one of its characters: I think, therefore I talk. His characters, assembled in a cottage on the west coast for a Hallowe'en party, talk a blue streak about everything: their work, philosophies, love lives (at length) and emotions. Much of what they say is, to vary a usage of theirs, finely spun merde but life can, of course, be like that.
And, given the characters in question, pretentious talk would be quite in order. There are a waitress/wannabe actress; her exlover, an ex journalist who now works in a video shop; a PR lady and her sardonic husband; a director of pretentious documentary films and his female producer/wife; a male prostitute who prefers to think of himself as an expensive date and his unhappily married lover. And there is their host, the gay but absent George, who set up many of their relationships and who may or may not be dead.
The first act fairly wallows in exposition as we get a handle on all this, and clever, musing stuff much of it is. Mr Hughes has a way with dialogue, neat oneliners and persuasive badinage pointing up aspects of his created people. The story moves into a rave, in the sense of uninhibited dance fuelled by drink, after which the party is interrupted by a visitor with bad news about George. The first act ends with a burst of emotion bordering on kitsch, which bodes ill for what is to come.
I still don't know what to make of the second act. Ethereal music and mysterious lights galvanise the party into thoughts of reformed lives and new ambitions. But further inexplicable events suggest that the group may have been subjected to mass hallucination or even a practical joke. Is George really dead, or just being cruel? Newly redeemed relationships disintegrate, old betrayals return to haunt, and the gays find each other while a threatening tide pounds at the cottage. Too much; it is all quite incredible, teetering on the edge of risibility, and then left unresolved.
The acting, as is the way with the Rough Magic company, is strong and entertaining, with Porn Boyd, Paul Hickey, Jenni Ledwell, Simon O'Gorman, Anne Byrne, Sean Rocks, Arthur Riordan, Eanna MacLiam and Miche Doherty all giving committed performances. Lynne Parker's direction might have modified some of the script's excesses, though she generally marshalls her forces to effect. But, finally, the play's the thing, and I fear that the most talent can do for it is paper over some of its yawning cracks.