THEATRE REVIEW: The Kitchen, The Bedroom And The Grave

Our final theatrical retrospective this week is a tale of two journeys, one more painful and eye-opening than the other

The blurb for Donal O'Hagan's tightly-woven, compellingly acted and expressive The Kitchen, The Bedroom And The Grave indicates that its central character, an up-and-coming journalist happy with his life in London, will be "forced out from behind his camera" once he is asked to return to his Belfast home and shoot a documentary on the changing face of Northern Ireland.

But what sort of "forcing out" lies in store for Dempsey, played by Jason McLaughlin? Is it that of his own secrets, that of his family secrets, or is it from the bubble he has created for himself, as most journalists are wont to do in their working lives? Truth is, it's all three.

Dempsey first emerges onto stage looking like a lost traveller, while six small TV screens statically fizzle on our left. An English lady named Alesha (Angela Kiire) then appears on screen to tell our clearly worried lead that he "has a real chance" with the documentary he is prepararing, and insists that he keeps her in the loop. She is one of at least ten screen performers who provide differing views on the nature of Irish locality and how they believe it will affect them.

It is a strong backdrop and not an irrelevant sideshow to the main narrative, which really begins when Dempsey throws himself into the arms of Mark, played by Cillian O'Sullivan as a more humorous, relaxed variance of his 6Degrees alter-ego. McLaughlin and O'Sullivan seem so at ease as a gay Catholic journalist and a gay Protestant shrink, respectively; their early exchanges are laced with semi-camp comedy and amusingly cryptic psychology.

These conservations all take place in the "bedroom" of the title. But where is the "kitchen"? It is where Dempsey's parents, Tom (Noel McGee) and Martha (Maggie Cronin, once of BBC's Doctors), are seen discussing journalism themselves, what with Martha being Ulster Tatler's columnist of the year. Like mother, like son. Except Tom is not overly impressed by opinionated journalists, who he regards as "jumped up scribblers writing down their opinions as if they were Moses writing the Commandments from 11 to 20." Why, Tom thinks, should anyone care what goes on in someone else's marriage? More worrying to Tom is the very existence of Dempsey's documentary, which he believes is being restricted by commercial needs.

But Martha is equally worried, if not more so; she doubts Tom's very integrity due to his moods. He's become worried, irritable and is forgetting things - all indicators of Alzheimer's or dementia! Ironically, a disease is killing Tom, but it is neither of the aforementioned. He has instead been struck down by incurable cancer which will see him on the way to the titular grave. Therefore he prides himself on the "confusion and disorganisation" in his life, as Dempsey puts it; it keeps him busy, as a state of mind Tom uses to conceal the illness that is actually killing him.

With Tom eager to retain patriarchal control, Martha is just as keen to mask what she is really feeling by just getting on with life. Everything foreshadows an eventual emotional explosion. By the time Dempsey is scheduled to record his own thoughts about his homeland, his mind is blank, the product of a tearful soul struck down by fright and frustration. It is down to Mark, and his scene-stealing Seth Rogan-esque expressions, to cheer him up, and O'Sullivan is more than up to the task.

Cut to the Linenhall Library in Belfast, Tom and Dempsey playing chess, and an incisive exploration of the father-son dynamic. Why, for example, would the father be exceptionally keen for the son to stay at home when the son is truly loving life by himself? It is about more than simply familial love, it is about having someone to confide in, to share secrets with; and, in an extremely cynical move, to help provide the self-assurance he so desires in a situation where he is too frightened to tell his own wife the truth about his terminal illness. Typically, Tom relays story after story to Dempsey to convince him, and us, that he's doing the right thing, but he's fooling no-one.

And it is testament to the skill of O'Hagan, director Richard Lavery and the cast that while the illness is the centrepiece of the plot, it is not heavy-handedly highlighted, instead treated with a dignified gloom that slowly creeps into everyone's conversations. The conversation over the chessboard, in particular, is so engrossing that we forget about the game in hand - and so do the characters.

What could then easily veer into a strange mix of soapy family drama and lame pseudo documentary instead becomes something more interesting and hard-hitting. Among Dempsey's various interviewees, one businessman (Conor Maguire) comes across as driven, optimistic but hugely misguided. Two youngsters (Domhnall Herdman and Conor Doran) can't wait to get out of the country. And a young Irishwoman (The Clearing's Megan Armitage), the third child of three, views her life as disappointing, yet remains convinced she, and everyone else, will bounce back. These vox populi are just some of the voices that mirror the contrasting mindsets of the play's characters, all of whom find themselves caught in the expected emotional meltdown that occurs when all the play's secrets are out in the open.

In an especially heated exchange, Dempsey tells Mark: "You analyse other people to avoid analysing yourself", before Mark retaliates with "You hide behind your cameras and one-liners." Unfair, maybe even a little over-the-top, but not insignificant. Just how far can our work go in masking our personality defects? Tom's suggestion to a now-fully-in-the-know Martha that he is better taking his life is met with equal horror and derision: "Do you not love me enough to stay?" she wails. The truth is, nothing scares Tom more than "the thought of leaving (Martha)" - it is just that he, as the patriarch, does not believe in burdening either her or Dempsey with his vulnerability and pain.

As Tom meets his end, the family has been through an emotional mess as varied as the series of opinions in Dempsey's documentary. It has been a tale of two journeys for Dempsey, one more significantly hurtful than the other.

Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Meehan at Accidental Theatre. For more information on The Kitchen, The Bedroom And The Grave and other Accidental Theatre productions, check out their official website.

THEATRE REVIEW: Over The Wire

The second of three theatrical retrospectives this week: a grimly humorous historical prison tale in an unforgiving, violent and paranoid setting

When we watch television, or see a movie, we don't usually expect our prison and war dramas to be totally grimy, spatial and unrepentantly ugly. We tend to prefer intimacy, matinee idol heroes, very well-developed themes and tight, clear narratives. Over The Wire - intentionally - has none of these things. It is inconsistently paced, tough on the eye, and its violence dangerously verges on exploitative. But, for all that, it is skin-crawlingly uncomfortable - and relentlessly interesting.

One's very first words when they walk into any theatre staging Over The Wire would surely be something like: "Oh, hell." Oh hell, yeah. The stage is set up to resemble a caged prison where barbed wire laces the top of the "walls". The play's opening shot sees two of the central characters lying under a pale, yellow, heavily pierced shelter, expecting the rain, or worse, to do its worst. The only washing water there is lies in bins laced with muck. This is Long Kesh jail in Belfast in 1974, at a time when much of the prison has been destroyed following a literally fiery riot. Multi-award winning writer Seamas Keenan has opened, and will continue widening, our eyes to this unforgiving world, a place where violence, paranoia and hunger heavily invade the hearts, minds and bodies of five prisoners behind the wires.

You can't really pigeonhole Over The Wire as a clichéd, lightweight "Great Divide" play with the difference between the two central factions - Republican prisoners on the inside, British soldiers on the outside - drawn in straight, brutal lines. The contrasts run deeper than that. Initially, we rely on spotlights, the barking of guard dogs and idle chitter chatter to paint the gap between the filthy, confused picture for the prisoners and the well-drilled precision of the guards. But when we realise just how tired the imprisoned men are of consistently tolerating such conditions, which come complete with routine marches and periodic beatings, the play's impact really hits home. These men have been driven to violence. They want to plan their own Great Escape. And it looks an impossibility.

The five Unusual Suspects - Dee (Gerry Doherty), Dutch (Andrew Doherty), Colin (Micheál McDaid), Barry (Martin Bradley) and Lucas (Pat Lynch) genuinely do not want to bond. They don't look like they trust each other, let alone the guards. But when the only outcome is bitter food, bitter drink and even more bitter spirits, what choice do they have? Cue sing-songs and rapid-fire jokes amidst heavy torture from the officers. It's as if John McBlain's Ceasefire Tapes were given a lesson in how to be funny then chucked into this prison.

Such varying moods can only lead to madness, and when one prisoner is briefly let out of the "cage" for a "real meal" of sausages, chips, peas and gravy - which, of course, he cannot possibly turn down - enmity naturally rises when he returns. So too does the violence, this time among the prisoners; especially Lucas, who turns downright creepy in a torturous bloodbath of a climax. Any sense of normality in this exceptionally designed, intimately acted, grimly humorous production is now wholly out the window, leaving the audience shocked to the core once they leave the theatre. But this is not surprising. For since when was a cage laden with "wires, dogs, starvation, broken bones and beatings", as one prisoner puts it, ever expected to be "normal"?

(Photos: GC Photographics.)

THEATRE REVIEW: A Skull In Connemara

In the first of three theatrical retrospectives at Si's Sights And Sounds this week, the backdrop of a farcical family sitcom gives way to tragedy

Less a whodunnit than a bit of a whyandhowdunnit, Martin McDonagh's A Skull In Connemara fits in snugly alongside the best both him and brother John Michael have offered to the arts world, a continuously beating heart resting beneath the mixture of natural and caricatured dialogue, snappily paced direction and haphazard antics. It is not the resolution, powerful though it is, that really lingers, but the journey to that point: smooth slapstick laced with sodden seriousness and a quartet of quality performers.

Almost typically for a McDonagh script, the play, directed by Andrew Flynn, opens with thick and heavy banter. The Irish brogue of Mick Dowd (Garrett Keogh) and Maryjohnny Rafferty (Maria McDermottroe) comes at the audience like a firecracker, retaining our attention through its Father Ted-esque nature and sharp-tongued delivery. The arrival of Mairtin (Jarlath Tivnan) complicates things, the repetitiveness of his speech patterns emphasizing the play's more ridiculous elements and creating a tone akin to a farcical, sometimes philosophical, family sitcom.

These three aren't family, but you could very easily liken them to Mr Twit, Mrs Twit, and the son they never had when Roald Dahl wrote one of his most beloved books. It only takes a Mairtin, who prides himself on his "purely uncommon sense" to show how thin the line between endearing naivete and dangerous stupidity can be.

A Skull In Connemara is absolutely laden with symbolism, both of the obvious and subtle kind. Do the three cracks in the wall of Mick's house hint at his fractured relationships with friends and family? Does the cross in the middle of those cracks spell out the characters’ differing religions for us, particularly Mick’s and Maryjohnny's? Do the alliterative names of the characters – Mick, Maryjohnny, Martin – indicate that this play is all about Murder and Mystery? (It is.)

And when the wall of the house "collapses" to reveal a cemetery on a hill lit up by moonlight – Owen MacCarthaigh's set design and Sinead McKenna's lighting are as much a star of the play as everything else – we look around the set and ask even more questions. Does the lantern highlighting the branches on a tree resemble a light at the end of a metaphorical tunnel for Mick's broken family? Does the heart-shaped gravestone represent a lack of love in their lives? Questions, questions, questions... and no clear-cut answers.

The play enters wickedly amusing territory – deadly dark humour, you may call it – when Mick finds a skull and begins joking over it with Mairtin. This leads to the discovery of more skulls, and numerous examples of visual and verbal punnage, including comments about appendage that you're better off not hearing here. Solemnity returns with the appearance of local Garda Thomas Hanlon (Patrick Ryan) who recounts the sickly tale of a nude dead man to our "heroes". The smarter-than-thou nature of McDonagh's characters has been known to grate, but what’s refreshing here is that through the black comedy, we learn that these "smart" characters, including the policeman, really aren't so smart after all. Mairtin’s position as the butt monkey for everyone else in the cast tears at him, and both worry and fear line Mick’s tired face when everyone finds out that the heart-shaped grave belongs to his wife... and there is no dead wife at the bottom of the grave! Could it be that the titular Skull In Connemara in fact belongs to Mick's beloved?

Naturally, such revelations and reactions take their toll on Mairtin and Mick, and by the beginning of Act Two we are back in the house, with the former drinking himself to death and the latter bringing in a hammer; Mick feels like "playing croquet" with the skulls. And so begins a foul, downright wrong yet shockingly amusing skull-smashing session in the house. It's a gross, unsettling, but extremely funny "Hammer Horror", highlighted by the characters’ choice of "All Kinds Of Everything" as background music. Did I say this was about Murder and Mystery? Perhaps I should add "Maddening". 

Or possibly "murky", for the remainder of the play detours into darker territory still, uniting and possibly dividing all four characters through terrifying reflections and almost pitiful resolutions. It is testimony to Flynn’s direction and especially McDonagh’s script that every single one of the now expected shifts in tone are handled adroitly, and that the characters are treated with the respect and ridicule they deserve in light of their situations. Most horrifying of all, and most resonant from A Skull In Connemara, is the ultimate consequence for Mick, the final shot poignantly revealing the humanity inherent in the vile actions of a now desolate man.

FILM REVIEW: Calvary

Brendan Gleeson and John Michael McDonagh reunite for a darkly comic, intimately rewarding triumph

In 2011, I attended a Q & A with Brendan Gleeson at the Foyle Film Festival following a special screening of his hit collaboration with Martin & John Michael McDonagh, The Guard. He had spoken very positively of his working relationship with the brothers, describing them as "vigorous and hard-edged film-makers who don't tolerate sloppy writing." Tellingly, Gleeson added that he and the duo were talking about making a film "featuring a good priest living in a village that vilifies him".

This idea has come to fruition nearly three years on in Calvary, a film which retains the darkly comedic tone of The Guard but tones down its admittedly appealing broadness for something more intimately rewarding: a touching, challenging, humorous and terrifically cast character piece. Anyone polarized by the work of the McDonagh brothers – some may see their comedies as tender and light-hearted, others as overly smug and knowing – will find much more to like here.

Gleeson plays Father James Lavelle, whose tired, bearded worn out face is the ideal fit for an actor of Gleeson's stature. Someone who sees himself as too old, too wise and just downright wrong for modern life, James is living out his days like one routine slog after another. (Imagine Tommy Lee Jones' very well played Sheriff Bell from No Country For Old Men, except more human and less arch, and you get the idea.) When the film opens, on a solitary shot of James's features in the darkness, he is listening to the confession of a young man, identified by voice only, who is traumatised by the sexual abuse he received from a priest at the age of seven. A typically bored James half-heartedly treats this as a routine assignment, advising the young man to cope or learn how to live with it. But he wishes to do neither. Instead, he arranges a meeting with James on a beach the following Sunday, where James will meet his end at the hands of this unknown parishioner. James' innocence, the mystery man says, solidifies him as a more satisfying target in his eyes, a stronger way of making a point.

What is this suggesting? That a prejudice has been formed against all priests because of the misdeeds of one, a point that will be illustrated again later in the movie? If so, it ties in with Gleeson's reference to vilification, albeit of the unfair kind. And so the film proceeds, as a week in the life of Father James, with an exceptionally expressive Gleeson the centrepiece of an equally expressive supporting cast. Without a Don Cheadle-esque foil to play off, Gleeson must work harder to bring his character alive, and he successfully does so in a community where few – with the exception of a couple of females – can really be trusted.

An aging writer (M. Emmet Walsh), a troubled widow (Marie-Josée Croze of Munich fame), a bored businessman (the always excellent Dylan Moran) and a butcher (the consistently improving Chris O'Dowd) are just a series of townsfolk we encounter on the interesting journey that evolves for James and, to a slightly lesser extent, his daughter Fiona, portrayed brilliantly by Kelly Reilly. The vulnerable tenderness between James and Fiona is the beating heart of a community in which James is, as Gleeson himself has said, generally vilified by people who neither want nor truly need his help. They instead wish to be left to cope in their own way, and use James to air their own frustrations. We learn here of how reassurance or self-assurance is preferred to "correction", "self-examination" or "critical inspection", and how many are too stubborn to accept change. If anyone really changes during the film, barring James and Fiona, it is forced circumstantial change, rather than voluntary change.

Suitably, the majority of McDonagh's focus is the father-daughter bond, and there is also openness to his filmmaking that you don't find in similarly "intimate" works such as those of a Sofia Coppola or a Spike Jonze. Nor, despite sadism and violence, is there the borderline crassness of a Spielberg or Tarantino; for example, the face of Isaach De Bankolé (who viewers may remember as a villain in Casino Royale '06) can be menacing enough in itself. McDonagh places great trust in his cinematographer and his actors, his directorial flourishes sparse but sparkling. And, in Calvary, both he and Gleeson have conjured up something rather special indeed, a piece of work that simultaneously mocks and pays lip service to the qualities of the relentlessly dark, "serious movies" of modern times, whilst maintaining the enjoyment quotient.