The kitchen sink drama that brings the Troubles home
The Ferryman (Royal Court, London) Verdict: Shattering, but superb The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Donmar Warehouse) Verdict: Lenny does Hitler
ULsTER’s agony, sectarian violence cascading down the generations, is caught lyrically in Jez Butterworth’s new tragedy The Ferryman.
Mr Butterworth had great success with Jerusalem almost a decade ago. Again, he shows that there can be more drama in a few acres of ancient countryside than in all modernity’s boulevards.
The Republican-leaning Carney family has been farming 50 acres of rural Northern Ireland for a century or so. It is harvest time, 1981, and Belfast and Derry are aboil with the Troubles.
But here on the farm the Carneys’ seven children, plus two aunts, an uncle, cousins — and even a gentle-giant English simpleton of a farmhand — are about to celebrate the annual gathering of the crops.
Pater familias Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine) seems a powerfully decent man, blessed with a fine brood.
All is well until the IRA comes calling with long-dreaded news. This play has plenty of Republican chest-beating that will test the resolve of patriotic Englishmen. Yet playwright Butterworth, with maybe just a soupcon too much blarney, draws us to a shattering and moral conclusion.
Director sam Mendes, as you would expect, has delivered the goods. Mr Considine may be handsome to an unlikely degree but he dominates the stage. Love interest is provided by Laura Donnelly, excellent as Quinn’s chaste sister-in-law.
After a brief opening on the Bogside, everything happens in the Carneys’ large farm kitchen, range cooker at one end, mystic aunt (Brid Brennan) at the other.
ALONG the way we have appearances by a live rabbit, live goose and a beautiful baby. In a strong cast, gerard Horan plays a weak-willed priest and John Hodgkinson gives the English simpleton touches of a shakespearean innocent. A gang of child actors does amazingly well.
In Virgil, ferryman Charon was unable to soothe souls until their bones were at rest. With the recent death of former IRA commander Martin Mcguinness, can Northern Ireland start to put its savage history into the ground? Or must the cycle of hatred and reprisal — in Ulster and elsewhere — continue for hundreds more years? Timely. superb. SIR Lenny Henry has become such a decent actor, he is the best thing in a new production of Bertolt Brecht’s clever antiNazi satire, written in 1941.
SIR Lenny plays Arturo Ui, a Chicago mobster who seizes power over the city’s crime world using methods little different from those of Adolf Hitler in Thirties germany.
Apart from sir Lenny’s performance, the main thing that strikes you may be the bravery Brecht (a Bavarian) needed to pen such an unflinching attack on Hitler and his henchmen. He was in Finland at the time, awaiting permission to emigrate to the United states. Even so, this must have taken guts.
simon Evans’s production, using a new text by Bruce Norris, tries to broaden the satire by making Donald Trump a new target.
Various Trump phrases and allusions ( and even a Trumpish banner slogan) are worked into the proceedings. These raise laughs — of which there are several in a sprightly, energetic evening — but they reduce the potency of Brecht’s vituperation.
At times it is all so jaunty, the darkness of Ui and Hitler is lost. There is a lot of swearing. Ui begins the show as a middle- ranking mafia thug. sir Lenny gives him a hobbling gait. In a strong scene, we see him being taught how to carry himself in a more leaderly way.
By the alchemy of political rhetoric and image-making, lowly Ui is transformed into a plausible tyrant, complete with a raised-arm gesture.
It is not long before a warehouse has been set on fire, just as Hitler’s cronies torched the Reichstag. All this is solid stuff.
The Donmar’s auditorium has been turned into a cabaret venue, with some members of the audience sitting at cocktail tables by the stage.
People in those seats are in danger of being dragged up to take part in the show. For me, that was an unwelcome distraction.
The central allegory is surely strong enough not to need such stunts. Once again, though, the Donmar jemmies a closing ‘howthis-is-relevant’ speech into the last moments.
The same was done in this venue’s recent play about the sDP.
Most theatregoers are clever enough to see the topicality of great plays without the need for a fingerwagging explanation.
The Donmar’s artistic director, Josie Rourke, should trust the old adage ‘ show, don’t tell’.
VERSIONS of some reviews appeared in earlier editions.