A tough trawl through rough times
Good perfomances can’t lighten the relentless nature of these tales of woe
Town Is Dead Peacock Theatre Until July 9 HHHHH ‘Barbara Brennan is particularly good in the demanding role of Ellen’
Igave up cryin’ a long time ago,’ laments 68-year-old Ellen in song at the beginning of this work by Philip McMahon and Raymond Scannell, described slightly pretentiously as a play within music. There’s plenty of musical accompaniment, and words are occasionally sung and harmonised, but it’s not a musical – more a sub-Sondheim exploration.
Although she says she’s given up crying, Ellen and the two other female characters do their best to squeeze tears from the rest of us as they unload their sad life histories in a combination of nostalgia and misery memoir.
Ellen must leave her flat in Dublin’s inner-city, due for development. She’s to live for a while with her more well-heeled sister and husband in ‘poxy Lucan’ – Ellen isn’t short of expletives. Nor is her upstairs neighbour, the pregnant young Croatian Katarina. In fact, things start off pretty chipper as the pair bounce off each other. And then the mixed-race, unknown Rachel arrives from England, seeking her half-brother Will, Ellen’s only son.
This opens a spate of revelations from Ellen that bring us through her early life, to England and back again, all in long monologues.
There’s even a two for the price of one account of a savage attack on a black homosexual. And to balance things, Katarina chips in with her own tale of tough times, followed by Rachel with a slightly more balanced saga of woe.
The stories have a base in reality but lack dramatic punch when they’re just wheeled out in mournful recollections that spell out every detail, and have a certain inevitability about them, especially with the spectral figure of Will hovering in the background. Barbara Brennan is particularly good in the demanding role of Ellen, well supported by the always excellent Kate Gilmore as Katarina, and by Fia Houston-Hamilton as Rachel, although the role doesn’t give her much to work with.