Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
The photographic portrait on the wall of Marie’s
living room presents its smiling male subject as a picture of innocence in this
revival of Rona Munro’s 1990 Belfast-set play. As the already fragile veneer of
domestic calm comes crashing down once Marie’s Saturday night with the girls
takes a volatile turn, it proves to be anything but.
The catalyst for this is the arrival of a teenage girl
dressed in white who lands on Marie’s doorstep after making poetic reveries in
the rain while bathed in the British army searchlight from the helicopter
overhead. This is Deirdre, who cuckoos her way into the fold as Marie, her pal
Cassie and Cassie’s mum Nora keep up the tragi-comic pretence that everything’s
okay.
This is despite living in the occupied warzone of the
Northern Irish Troubles, with assorted men-folk either incarcerated in Long
Kesh, or, in the case of Michael, the man in the photograph and Marie’s
husband, dead. All four women look to different ways of surviving the crossfire
they’re caught in, grabbing after simple pleasures and pretending everything’s
alright.
Richard Baron’s stately production navigates its way
through the everyday mundanity of the women’s lives on Neil Haynes’ vividly
observed living room set with an easy naturalism broken at points by out-front
monologues from each of the women. At its heart are a quartet of beautifully
realised performances from Deirdre Davis as Nora, Scarlett Mack as Cassie,
Sinead Sharkey as Deirdre and Lucianne McEvoy’s heart-rending turn as Marie. With
the women pushed to extremes, there are no sentimental displays of solidarity
here, only a quiet desperation and a steely will to survive. When Sunday
morning comes, Marie, Deirdre and the others may still only have crumbs of a
life, but they’ll get by as they always have.
The Herald, January 29th 2018
ends
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