Eleventh Night turns up heat as friendships are tested in fiery play
Fire Below (A War of Words)
Lyric Theatre, Belfast WHAT better way to spend a summer’s evening than sitting on your deck, sipping cold white wine and looking at the view?
Gerry and Rosemary wait for neighbours Tom and Maggie to join them in the garden, in time to watch the crowd on the estate below light their Eleventh Night bonfire.
There’s something about a fire. Everything’s in place for a lovely time: wine, breadsticks, parma ham, classical music in the background. The natives down below will provide the entertainment (and the tyre smoke).
Jimmy Fay directs Owen McCafferty’s sharp, sly drama which explores how, 20 years after the Belfast Agreement, things in Northern Ireland have changed. Or whether they’ve changed at all.
They’re certainly pretty good for middle classes. ‘Ex-Catholic’ Gerry (Frankie McCafferty in excellent form) is happy to sit on his deck and look at the stars — it’s a shame the less fortunate Protestants below him couldn’t stop their hating and do the same.
As the wine flows (Shipping Direct, £57 a case, says Rosemary brightly) tongues loosen, cracks appear in the conversation, and prejudice peeks out. Can the auand dience see itself in the mirrored set, beyond the trees, dancing around the deck?
Tom, a Protestant, is embracing learning Irish ‘in a spirit of inclusiveness’. He and Rosemary bat phrases across the heads of tight-lipped, excluded Gerry and Maggie. What secrets are being exchanged? What information passed?
The couples turn their attention to the estate below. Wouldn’t it have been nicer if it had been a mixed one? But that’s stupid people for you, wanting to huddle together.
Then talk turns to the past, the fire that still simmers below the surface starts to crackle. Friendships are in danger of going up in smoke. Rich with humour and hubris, this play for today looks at the chasm between classes, as well as communities.
A somewhat overblown denouement is used to good effect. Once the tensions have burned out, glasses are filled and peace resumed.
The couples gather around the flickering fire pit, while down below flames catch the bonfire. It’s the night that stupid people have a party.