REVIEW
A Night in November
The MAC, Belfast until November 28
QUESTIONS of national identity are in the air. Following Catholic real-life self-determination with In the Name of the Son at the Lyric Theatre, we get a superb piece of Protestant self-examination with the revival of A Night in November at The MAC.
Of course, Marie Jones's only overtly political play is so much more than that. It takes you inside the ultra Protestant skin of Kenneth Norman McAllister who has no idea how the other team lives.
It examines the territorial, sectarian attitudes of this place via the not always beautiful game, football, which is also territorial.
We first meet Kenneth (award-winning Matthew Forsythe), dole clerk and aspirational Protestant, who is happy with his lot checking for devices under his car as it's the '90s.
His life is compartmentalised ("ten by ten" as he says later), his attitudes too, and he's thrilled at having achieved golf club membership ahead of his Catholic supervisor Gerry.
The first pleasingly sit-com section shows Forsythe's astonishing ability to morph from Kenneth to wife Deborah and to father-in-law Ernie. The old guy, unpleasant as Albert Steptoe, uses the infamous Northern Ireland v Ireland match in the early '90s to taunt the players from the Republic with references to a recent terrorist attack. "Greysteel 7 - Ireland nil," he chants.
We move towards Kenneth's Damascene conversion following his disgust at the older man's bigotry. In lesser hands, this could have seemed implausible but the writing and acting convince.
Kenny's agonising hits home. He questions his home life, his marriage, his very identity. Forsythe was affecting here and droll in the scene where he drives his boss home to the Falls, a part of town unknown to him, locking the car door as he goes.
Enter what you might call a different type of Irish liberation. Via an amusing, but also thought-provoking sequence of events, our hero escapes from a boxed in set (well designed by Chris Hunter) to the boxes that represent New York City.
After beginning a TV news habit and registering the start of the peace process, Kenneth realises he's stuck in sectarian hell... with friends Pauline and Stuart who are OCD about mushroom vol au vents.
The denouement is delicious, life enhancing and well directed by Matthew McElhinney who enables Forsythe to people the stage with deft moves.
Kenneth escapes his dead end existence to follow Jackie's army, shouting "Olé, olé, olé."
In New York, it all comes good for the team as they tackle Italy. Kenneth asks at one point: "Is it possible to change?"
Well, yes, we've come a long way and the new preface to this revival refers to the 2016 Euros where both Northern Ireland and the Republic fans were praised for their decency.
The play finishes with the back-of-the-net line: "I'm an Irishman." Forsythe spoke this with wonder. This is a subversive play, about a kind of coming out.
Jane Hardy
:: More about the revival of A Night In November and an interview with director Matthew McElhinney in Weekend.
