DID A BROKEN HEART TRIP HER UP?
Was our wounded heroine just being careless when she fell or…
‘Her tendency to be obsessive over minute details, hints at a mental problem’
MICHAEL MOFFATT SHOW OF THE WEEK How To Fall Flat On Your Face Project Arts Until Saturday HHHHH
The title is one of those quirky ones that normally only crop up at Fringe productions. But Katie Honan’s onewoman marathon (80 minutes) of her own play, is a combination of love story and psychological teaser aimed at keeping the audience guessing about her heroine and why she has ended up in a London hospital with considerable facial damage.
The simple answer is that she was careless and fell flat on her face getting off a Tube, despite all those notices about minding your step. The more obvious question is why she didn’t put out her hands to break her fall, the most instinctive action imaginable. And that’s really the core of the play.
Perhaps she was too absorbed wondering why her beloved Conor is not answering her phone calls or was she still thinking about how she never knew her parents and was brought up by grandparents – or was the fall really an accident?
The play takes us back and forth from the present to the past as she dwells on the confusion of being landed in a London hospital with no NHS history or GP, while portraying the eccentricities of some other patients and the idealised vision of her great love affair, with sound and lighting effects to create atmosphere and time zones.
Another aspect of her life is her tendency to be obsessive over minute details, which hint at a mental problem, but provide comic touches that lighten the scene.
The centre of it all is the overstretched relationship with Conor, who never really comes alive as a character. The nurse at the hospital seemed more real. And a major threat seems to be the new female boss at the gym where he works. The long, unanswered phone calls don’t need to be interpreted for the audience.
Honan’s performance is a very fine combination of characterisation and endurance, but parts of her speeches were too rushed, and she sometimes fell into the habit of delivering phrases as actual whispers instead of projecting stage whispers that can be heard at the back of the hall. But these are flaws that should easily be corrected as the run goes on.
Super-hero is not bog standard
Super-Bogger is a dive into the frazzled mind of Barry West (Aaron Monaghan). He has a wonderful life, happy kids and lives in a beautiful house in a small country town where nothing ever happens. So why is he miserable?
A chance encounter with a radioactive fox leaves Barry with strange new super powers that turn him into Super-Bogger, Ireland’s first modern-day super hero, and start him disturbing the peace of his small town and reviving old rivalries.
The husband and wife team of Monaghan and Clare Monnelly (Charlies’s A Clepto) have crafted a novel super-hero to compete with the more brash variety.
Touring to Cavan (Nov 22 &
23, 8pm) and then Roscommon, Longford, Drogheda, Galway.
See livindred.ie
Making a show of Irish way of life
The Perfect Immigrant, written and performed by poet and playwright Samuel Yakura, which has been running at The Civic, Tallaght, continues its tour this month to Cork, Bray and Galway.
A young Nigerian man leaves his homeland, with three worn suitcases, hoping to fulfil his dream of studying engineering in a new country. This humorous one-man show explores the challenges faced by people like him searching for a better future, including the problems of job-hunting, exploring Ireland’s dating scene and even searching for hot chilli peppers in Lucan.
Moving to Cork Arts Centre (Thursday until Nov 18), Mermaid, Bray (Nov 25) and Town Hall Theatre, Galway (Nov 27).