Tron Theatre, Glasgow
4 stars
It looks like the end of the world in Seamus Keenan's blistering new
play, which Derry Playhouse brought to the Tron's Mayfesto season last
week. Either that or some latter-day social experiment for reality TV
or a venue for extreme sports. In fact, the barbed-wire topped cage
that confines five men in what looks like a burnt-out scrap-yard is a
dead-ringer for Long Kesh in 1974 after the County Down-based prison's
IRA prisoners torched it during riots.
The five men now appear to occupy some approximation of a Beckettian
wasteland, in which they attempt to keep up a notion of army
discipline, even as they survive on scraps while sleeping in the most
makeshift of shelters. Three of them, Barry, Colin?? and pretty-boy
Dutch are volunteers. Dee is notional leader, with Lucas his brutal
number two. Beyond the macho banter and dedication to the cause, the
claustrophobic living conditions create an uneasy tension that turns to
suspicion, paranoia and inevitable violence.
Making an overdue return to his theatrical roots after a successful
career making gritty TV and film, director Kenny Glenaan captures the
full light and shade messiness of the situation the men find themselves
in. Scenes are short, sharp and sometimes shocking, with Keenan's
script illustrating the pains of confinement with a gimlet-eyed lack of
sentimentality devastatingly portrayed by a fine ensemble cast. Seen up
close in the Tron's tiny Changing House space, such relentless
intensity also captures the ideological civil war of the period in all
it's merciless brutality. If you treat men like animals, it suggests,
that's how they'll behave when they fight back.
The Herald, May 13th 2013
ends
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