Kudos all round for the ‘New Play House’.
Forty Pinter Alphonsus Ellis meets challenger Thirty Pinter Tommy OKeefe in Battle of the Boozers
I’m delighted to see writer/director Luke Corcoran’s move his pub theatre to a regular theatre on the Mall tonight with four vignettes that delight a full house.
Three short plays full of humour and point-making followed by an extended one-act comedy, and from his own pen, that has the audience rocking with laughter.
Dramatic hooks are immediate in all four plays and waste no time in grabbing the audience.
An opening ‘Good Christopher’, set in a padded cell, sees a conversation between the keenly intelligent, if hyper-inquisitive, Christopher (Peter Wright) in conversation with psychiatrist Dr. Richards (Gillian Walsh) where patient and doctor reverse rolls over the course of the action.
Dr. Richards’ technique of question and reward with a happy pill gives way under Christopher’s massively intelligent insight into her own character.
Questions of what are real and what are not invokes, not only the characters themselves, but the audience also.
It’s a clever and witty piece that leaves us all wondering if Dr. Richards only exists in Christopher’s mind and if everything that has occurred has only happened in Christopher’s imagination – including us the audience?
‘Offboarding at the end of the world’ imagines an ultra-capitalistic world where only one company exists and is operated by Dermot Dwyer (Jerome O’Sullivan) – an obsessive, self-absorbed narcissist who delights on inflicting mental and economic misery on his employees and forces underlings to do his dirty work of hiring and firing.
Enter gentle and kind Aoife (Máire McGrath) as his latest worker-slave who is to fire all and sundry on Dwyer’s latest whim.
When his latest recruit questions the morality of firing employees on the flimsiest of reasons like Orwell’s ‘thought crime’ such as ‘considering parking in his space’.
Dwyer adds to poor Aoife’s anxieties by telling her that ‘she’s doing the firing – not him’. Sounds Trumpian? You bet it does.
‘Tak’Tá ‘ baffles and amuses in equal measure. It’s set in three different languages – Ukranian/Irish and Russian (???) – and follows the fortunes of Petro (Ukranian Pavlo Bonderenko) and his Irish girlfriend Caoimhe (Kohneshia DeBhál) with invitations to the audience to fill in the gaps.
Which the audience does – in Ukranian and Irish! Serious points are made here about the frustrations experienced by non-nationals in a foreign country who need to have their voice heard and their feelings shared.
There was no confusion or uncertainty about Luke’s final one-act simply entitled ‘Forty’ because Forty (Alphonsus Ellis) is an absolute drinking legend following last year’s drinking competition in which he downed forty pints i.e. five gallons of porter!
Pub owner Jack Ruddle says ‘you could bet your house on him repeating his victory’. And…in fact…he’s just done that…and a lot more besides.
Only problem is nobody told Forty and he’s decided, as of today, he’s off the gargle, for good.
And there’s no budging the taciturn tanker despite the efforts of much-put-upon barmaid Salomé Keidia, ex-wife Sarah Bowie, champ-promoter David Greene, drink-cadger Fr. Bryan Costelloe who blesses the competition if you don’t mind, thirty-pint-opponent Tommy O’Keefe and his promoter Paula Bondarenko.
Oh dear… It’s a laugh-a-line from here to the finish. The will-he-won’t-he scenario plays out against desperate pleas to a stubborn Forty to repeat last year’s gargle triumph.
We’ll say no more.
Although we have four separate plays, the whole night zips along and Luke Corcoran’s characters fascinate us so much that we take them home with us.
It’s quite a triumph to stage fourteen interesting characters that are all remarkably unique and the standing ovation is well deserved.
Kudos all round for the ‘New Play House’.
