REVIEW
Before You Go
Lyric Theatre
THIS is the nasty part of my privileged job as the reviewer in the stalls, the moment when the sharpened Biro needs to puncture.
Kabosh's production of Before You Go at the Lyric Theatre's Naughton Studio was disappointing. The Greeks' term for drama, and they pretty much started it, is the verb 'drao'. It means to do or act. In other words it involves life, energy, beginnings, middles and ends.
Sadly, Laurence McKeown's three-hander lacked those qualities. We met the da, Brendan (James Doran), and his daughter Sorcha (Eimear Fearon), and got a kitchen table rather than kitchen sink examination of a dysfunctional relationship.
The language ricocheted between the vernacular ("I seen", "we've went") to Open University-style psychological discourse, which didn't lead to consistency.
Then up popped his late partner, her late mother, attractive but unconfident Mary (Lisa Duffy), not really acting like a ghost and interacting easily with the other characters in the familiar storyline.
In a way, there was a kind of slight Russian short story locked in here asking to be let out. The plot concerned the father's neglect of his daughter after his wife's death.
The couple had fallen out after she smelt a strong perfume on him one evening after he had done a job for someone. She suspected the worst and there was a deal of psychological damage swirling around the rather bright set.
Mary gave us an explanation of her low self-esteem that involved a mean mother, unfulfilled ambitions, the usual stuff.
The denouement was potentially interesting. Mary leaves her partner - they have never married - and daughter Sorcha, off to Australia (hence the title), challenges her father over this.
And we learn that Mary bumped into an OAP one day who compliments her on her daughter and her man. She says she had had work done by him and that he was "a nice man".
Then Mary and the old woman hugged. At which point - reader, you're ahead of me here - Mary smelt the potent perfume that convinced her flirty Brendan was having an affair. One of the best lines illustrating his character is when he says, "In my head I am still 16."
It ended with loss. Mary was killed – suicide reared its tragic head but no, a traffic accident. Sorcha prepared to head to Melbourne. The future of her relationship with her dad and longing for a normal family life may remain unrealised.
The music by Gráinne Holland which topped and tailed the play, directed by Paula McFetridge, was beautiful.
The audience didn't seem energised until the end when some did the standing ovation. Hmm.
Jane Hardy
