View from the Green Room: “Oops…Sorreeeee…”
The cast of Sorry Miscellany
Broken Crow theatre group have tapped into the Irish psyche and identified that Irish people love to apologise.
”Sorry to interrupt…sorry but your food is awful…sorry but the lights won’t work…sorry you’re late…sorry, I’m afraid you’re wrong…"
Sorry, at Garter Lane 2, seems to be the best word to say because it links all the vignettes of casual drama that we encounter as we follow our leader around the four floors of what was once our local library.
It all kicks off when performing stage manager Natasha Everett is forced to say sorry because, instead of advising in theatre housekeeping, she’s launched into a raunchy number on my ancient pate.
Then we’re off to Wolf representative Anne O’Riordan who advises on the unfairness of the Brothers Grimm’s representation of wolves in their fairy tales.
Canis Lupus is annoyed. Big bad wolves are troubled by angry old grannies and fiercely protective mammies and the woods is getting a bad name for a place for youngwans to hang out.
There’s a pope (Rosie O’Grady) hanging out on his iPhone on the Garter Lane 2 stairs all night trying to ring God.
“Hello…sorry…sorry…can you hear me…no…sorry, I’m the Pope.”
He’s got his number all right but feisty, female receptionists get in his way with some pretty ropey questions on sex and infidelity. Killian Browne links much of the evening on his keyboard with comic, jazzy ballads.
Tonight is not all fun and games, however, as real life intrudes on the comic drama. A lady (George Hanover) who has had an abortion apologises to her lit candle, token of a life that was extinguished before its time.
It’s a moving and compelling narrative that comes from the heart and is well delivered.
A confessional scene reverses the norm for penitence when a priest (Andrew McLaughlin) finds himself apologising to a penitent (Joe Meagher) for sexual abuse crimes that happened a generation ago. It’s a confusing two-hander script that needs more focus to identify the issues and the culprits.
The whole evening ends in the Garter Lane 2 Boardroom as we eavesdrop around the table of a corporate board seeking a way out of a situation they’ve created. Saying “oops…soreee…we focked up…” just isn’t the thing.
Being witness to a financial enterprise trying to worm its way out of a mess of their own making is good fun.
Do they succeed? …well, of course they do…this is big business, after all.
Sorreeee…
