That sinking feeling when gentle farce gives way to tragedy
Gripping but Stones needs to up the pace
Stones In His Pockets
There’s always something special about even the simplest productions in Smock Alley. It’s impossible to see any show there without being physically reminded of the history of this extraordinary building, opened as a theatre in 1662. It had serious structural flaws that led to accidental deaths and many reconstructions. There were political protests, once leading to the place being almost wrecked, and scandalous and destructive behaviour by the audience, including the attempted rape of an actress by a drunken Trinity student.
In the 1740s, Thomas Sheridan, father of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan brought professional standards to the theatre, even risking bankruptcy by establishing a resident orchestra of 30 players. The 1747 rape incident led to a court case in which Sheridan had to sue the unrepentant would-be rapist and defend his own right to be called a gentleman. The theatre closed in 1787 due to competition from other venues. But the building wasn’t demolished fully.
The church of St Michael & St John was built around the structure of the theatre in 1815, ordinary people subscribing a penny a week to the project. But even then, the building kept its dramatic touch. The curate was the only priest in the diocese to come out in support of the clubs advocating repeal of the Union, and the ringing of the bell caused legal trouble, breaking the law forbidding the ringing of Catholic church bells, and bringing Daniel O’Connell into the dispute.
In the 1960s, the priest in charge became famous for his highly personal sermons to a packed church at 9pm Masses on Sunday evenings. The church closed in the early 1990s but the theatre was resurrected over the structure again in 2012, to its former historical status and its distinctive rebuilding has integrated new performing areas cleverly into the old structure of the building.
Which brings us up to date with the new theatre and Marie Jones’s by now classic, Stones In His Pockets, a quintessentially modern play, first performed in 1996, in which two performers play multiple roles, combining artistic versatility and agility with shrewd economy.
The scene is Kerry, where a US film company is shooting a highly melodramatic Irish story. For the locals, it’s 40 quid a day plus lemon meringue pie for acting as extras – ‘background bogmen’ – with great possibilities for local tourism. Much the same brouhaha, in fact, as we’ve had here recently over the relocation of the EastEnders offshoot Redwater.
Locals Charlie (Conan Sweeny) and Jake (Charlie de Bromhead) see it as the chance of a lifetime. Their pathetic attempts to show their non-existent talents are highly entertaining but the play is a sharply-written commentary on the cynical exploitation of the naïve locals and the dangers of people being led to confuse banal interviews and show business hype with reality. Unrealised hopes lead to a suicide that suddenly changes the mood from gentle farce to tragedy.
Jake is less elated over it all than Charlie, who spends his time desperately hoping he can inveigle the production company to accept his film script that even Jake doesn’t rate. The whole wonderland is nicely summed up in the producer’s comment that people don’t come to films to be depressed – that’s what the theatre is for.
The two performers take on a profusion of roles and accents, including other locals, the director, the production assistant, and the dishy female star Caroline, with only a couple of caps as props: but the seductive and manipulative Caroline, is not the airhead the two gallants imagine.
Sweeny and de Bromhead work very well together but the first half didn’t have the kind of pace the show needs and Sweeny, with the more demanding role of Charlie, didn’t always differentiate the characters clearly enough. His performance stepped up considerably in the second half, his miming routines being particularly good and the pair sparking well off each other.
‘ Unrealised hopes lead to a suicide that suddenly changes the mood’