AN AMBITIOUS UNDERTAKING
WEXFORD DRAMA Festival saw another first-time visitor on Thursday last when it welcomed members of Coolgreaney Drama Group with their ambitious production of Ariel Dorfman’s classic, ‘Death and the Maiden’.
The group, who won the OneAct All Ireland in December, has turned its hand to a distinctly bigger offering, in every sense of the word.
It’s probably fair to say that all plays have a certain degree of politics threaded through them in subtext, but ‘Maiden’ is overtly political with plenty of reference to the atrocities that the characters’ unnamed country has seen.
The horrors experienced by Paulina are a microcosm of the unrest in the country and, from her, we gain some insight into how the entire identity and psyche of a place changes in such dark times.
The play revolves around one night in the Escobar house when Paulina holds visiting doctor Roberto hostage, believing he is the man who tortured and raped her 15 years earlier.
The three performances are solid. Denise Moules exudes danger and yet draws us in when she recounts her experiences. Richard Lister, as Roberto, is very believable as a desperate man held against his will and under threat of death. Their joint ‘confession’ near the end of the play is wonderfully constructed and flows seemless- ly, almost cinematically.
One of the key requirements is that the audience is left in doubt at the end - is Paulina succumbing to paranoia or is Roberto lying to save himself ? The group handled this aspect of the play well.
Finally, Eamonn O’Sheil stands out as Paulina’s lawyer husband Gerardo, an ambitious man who is keen to play his part in rebuilding the country, who is dedicated to seeking justice but cannot reconcile the idea of Roberto’s execution, even if he is his wife’s tormenter.
In a sense, Gerardo’s is the most difficult part in the play as he is, for the most part, torn between seeking justice and wanting revenge - he is, again, a microcosm of the national sentiment. To that end, the audience perhaps needs to see that internal struggle manifest more in his portrayal. At times, turbulent exchanges with both Paulina and Roberto simply whimper away which lessens their impact.
The atmosphere of the piece is well realised, with excellent set and lighting, and director Sally Stevens draws the audience into the moral dilemma faced by the characters very cleverly.
The pacing and slickness is slightly off in parts, but for the second night in a row, the Wexford audience was treated to a well-executed thought-provoker.