Boom to bust: The monologues
Adaptation of Donal Ryan’s novel has lots of jaw-jaw, but lacks oomph
The narrative pattern used in this stage version of Donal Ryan’s novel follows the formula in the book. Twenty characters, played by 10 actors, tell us their individual accounts of a town’s disintegration after the collapse of the building boom. The townspeople are all onstage, and react with each speaker physically, but don’t speak.
The story is built around the hardworking Bobby, embittered by unemployment and his repulsive father. Others include a couple of nymphomaniacs, a Russian, various people on a short fuse, a spooky young man with mental problems, a fled builder who never appears but who dominates their lives, and a ghost justifying his brutal behaviour in life. Where once the local priest would have had a central role, there’s a mere reference to him being told to ‘f *** off ’. But having 20 individual monologues rolled out, one after the other, eventually becomes slightly monotonous. The idea is to give an insight into the minds of these people but I found myself longing for even the occasional banter between some of the disillusioned and the physically and mentally abused, especially since much of the humour consists merely of crude comments on sex.
But nonetheless, the story is skilfully woven into a complex unit, portraying the vastly different mental and public faces of the individuals in small town life, where freewheeling morals can go side by side with love and family violence. And the emotional content is raised by a tragic drowning, infidelity, murder and a child abduction.
As well as the one character omitted from the original, a number of others are disposable, such as the creche owner; and the child’s version of life at home had an uneasy ring of cuteness, while the abduction ultimately seemed like a plot device that pulls its punches. And a lot of the onstage activity, while meant to be symbolic, came across as movement for its own sake.
There were, however, some exceptional performances by an excellent cast, especially by Killian Coyle, Caoimhe Mulcahy, Sinéad Fox and Shane O’Regan.
‘The idea is to give insight but I found myself longing for occasional banter’