Red-hot action as painters clash
Fair play and brotherhood take a battering
The title of Jimmy Murphy’s 1993 play is nicely ironic. The three painters working for their unscrupulous boss go in for lots of matey joshing with each other until individual ambitions create antagonism, at which point brotherhood hits the scrap heap. It’s not a clichéd tale of good-guy workers against the wicked employer. It’s a powerfully-written work about unscrupulous manipulation on both sides. Right and wrong barely come into it. The balance shifts throughout, and it’s never clear who’ll blink first.
Leading the workers is the strutting, work-shy Heno, a loudmouth union man who spends his money on lotto tickets hoping for the big win, while he dosses at work before slipping off to sign on for the dole. His union loyalty is a firm principle unless it gets in his way.
Young Lar is keen to get on with the job for the sake of his young family, after a long stint of unemployment. He ignores Heno’s demarcation insistence on a painter not cutting floorboards. Caught in between them is Jack, struggling with family loyalty, running out of energy for the job, and just hanging on for retirement.
Their boss, Martin, is red-hot at trotting out figures about money and unemployment to keep them in their place. He has no problem turning a blind eye to Heno’s illegalities, because he’s ignoring employment rules himself. Playing by the rules is a game for losers. His key weapon is the offer of better work and conditions, provided they toe the line.
The play is driven by some explosive dialogue and acting of nuanced intensity, with some great confrontations between Heno (Stephen Jones), Martin (Luke Griffin) and Lar (Stephen Cromwell), while the bewildered Jack (Gerald Byrne) has problems knowing which horse to back.
The Viking has opened out its stage very successfully to give scope to the action and the pace is kept sharp by Tracy Ryan’s snappy direction.
The dialogue is pure colloquial Dublin that might once have had problems from blasphemy legislation.
There’s a possibility of the play touring in the near future, and it plays at the Dolmen Theatre, Cornelscourt on Thursday/ Friday, November 22-23.
‘The balance shifts throughout, and it’s never clear who’ll blink first’