Gleeful downhome psychosis
Emer O’Kelly enjoys the Abbey’s film version of a sublimely barmy black comedy
Cyprus Avenue streaming online
DAVID Ireland’s first major play swept the boards as a co-production between the Abbey and the Royal Court when it premiered in 2016, just before the current artistic directorship took over at the Abbey. Last year, a film version was commissioned by The Space, directed by Vicky Featherstone, and this is being streamed by the Abbey free of charge until the middle of next month.
And it’s superb Covid viewing: unlike some streamings, Cyprus Avenue was made with full facilities, and takes the action of this bizarre black comedy onto the streets of Belfast to tell the story of a psychotic middle-class Protestant, an unrepentant bigot who lives on leafy, comfortable Cyprus Avenue. It was and is a dream part for Stephen Rea, as Eric’s lunacy begins to seep out from the hospital room where he is confined, having murdered not only his weeks-old granddaughter but also his daughter and his wife.
And it all began when he had to pretend to like the baby; cuddling her, he saw a distinct resemblance to Gerry Adams. Having used a marker to draw a beard and glasses on her sleeping face, he became convinced she WAS Gerry Adams.
It’s a play about psychosis; it’s a play about family; it’s a play about politics; it’s a play about identity; it’s a play about hatred; it’s a play about Ireland; it’s a play about the universe.
It is wildly, superbly, wickedly funny, with political incorrectness not so much in your face as shoved unerringly and gleefully down your throat.
Its achievement is that its Northern Ireland Loyalist suppositions could be smoothly reversed for another cosy downhome nationalist horror. Eric hates “Fenians”. But spread it about the place, and you can apply it to any minority, ethnic, religious, or whatever you’re having yourself.
It’s Homeric in its compass, and in Ireland’s use of language, as wickedly, deliberately offensive as possible, and viciously funny with it .
Andrea Irvine as the wife and Ronke Adekoluejo as the psychologist are new to the cast, with Rea refiguring his spectacularly funny and restrained performance, Amy Molloy as the doomed daughter, and Chris Corrigan as the loyalist vigilante who may or may not be all in Eric’s mind.
And Ireland is one of the writers, not all of them playwrights, who will take part in the Abbey’s Dear Ireland project.
Fifty writers have each been asked to contribute a monologue inspired by the crisis, and to nominate an actor to perform it.
The actors will self-record at home, and the results will be available on You Tube over four nights from April 28 to May 1.
And with notables including Blindboy, Sonya Kelly, Frank McGuinness, Nancy Harris, Gina Moxley and Michael West among the writers, and the actors including luminaries such as Clare Dunne, Marie Mullen, Marty Rea, Owen Roe, Brendan Gleeson and Stanley Townsend, it should be a treat as much as an act of hope and defiance.
‘Wildly, superbly, wickedly funny... shoved unerringly down your throat’