Ulster American – an insecure American actor, a profit-driven English theatre director and a stubborn playwright walk into a living room and it’s no joke! (Bright Umbrella at Sanctuary Theatre until Saturday 6 September)

David Ireland’s script for Ulster American constructs a pressure cooker plot between an actor, a director and a playwright. Each one of them is state of high stress.

Jay Conway is an insecure American actor who is more than chuffed to have been cast to perform a play by a Northern Irish playwright on an English stage, though his grasp of British/Irish history is even worse than his Belfast accent. Andrew McClay has the measure of this brash character, with a patterned shirt open to his navel, establishing an alpha male authority with pelvic thrusts, lunges, and clutching an Oscar as he walks around like a phallic symbol of deeply hidden inadequacy.

The action takes place in the living room of the English director’s house. Leigh Carter, played by James Boal, knows that whatever Jay’s faults and weaknesses, his involvement in the project is box office gold. So Leigh goes to great lengths to downplay the horror of the extremely provocative conversation that precedes the arrival of the playwright. While McClay must keep Jay running at full tilt, Boal can give Leigh the emotional space to act as a mediator before properly losing his cool in the second half. It’s a delightful transformation.

Ruth Davenport is on edge due to an altercation that hospitalised her mother before the playwright hopped on a plan to fly across for the start of rehearsals. To add English insult to mansplaining injury, she’s affronted by Leigh’s insistence that he knows her identity (Irish) better than she does (British), and is appalled by Jay’s idiotic questions about a script he clearly doesn’t understand. Caroline Curran plays a blinder with this stubborn and belligerent character who refuses to be scorned, ultimately mounting a ferocious fight back. Well known for comedy roles, Curran is equally comfortable and has equal stage presence when tackling darker material.

Trevor Gill’s direction gives Ulster American a consistent fast pace, understanding that the strong (and at times disgusting) concepts that Jay introduces don’t need space to breath, but can be left to linger unresolved while the next dramatic hand grenade is thrown into the room.

PJ Davey fills the Sanctuary Theatre’s stage with a modern living room set, complete with soft furnishings and theatrical posters and props. Angling the side walls might have given a sense of extra depth and perspective, and would have provided better sight lines for audience members seated in the left- and right-most pews.

While there are no jokes in the script, the execution is laugh out loud hilarious. The start of the final scene happens out of sight, and there’s added entertainment with the delayed gasps and tittering when not everyone in the audience spots the clue about what’s happening at the same time.

David Ireland’s play has much to say about misogyny, identity and stereotypes. The men fail to live up to their self-confessed inner feminism. Ruth fails to live up to the stereotype of being a lefty luvvie. Ireland explores hate speech and where offence becomes markedly extreme, and expect to be challenged by strong language, graphic violence, and references to sexual assault. Last played in Belfast back in 2019, the references to Brexit and Palestine haven’t dated at all.

By a wild coincidence, arriving at the east Belfast Sanctuary Theatre for last night’s performance, I was too late to snag one of the handy spots in the parking bay on the other side of Castlereagh Street. So I drove on up to the next block and parked on the road, just outside number 66, where David Ireland’s note in the theatre programme informs me that he lived when writing most of the Ulster American script.

Written in 2018, the inclusion of a misunderstood and disregarded voice of a right-leaning, Brexit-supporting, Ulster protestant playwright adds a lot of real-world resonance to the meta-narrative with a play about a theatrical powder keg blowing up in an actual theatre (and it’s rare to see a David Ireland play that doesn’t end up with blood splattered across the set and the cast). His take down of commercial theatre, the power dynamic between a director and other creatives, the clout of a star cast member, and the pressure on playwrights to bend their vision to suit all the other creative opinions in the rehearsal room is uncompromising. Critics also don’t escape Ireland’s vicious pen: “keep the good ones as pets” and kill the rest.

This production of Ulster American revels in the discomfort of the trio of characters. The cast’s confidence in moving through the fast-paced scenes delivers a thrilling 75 minutes of thought-provoking theatre. It’s an ambitious production that deserves to be seen by more people than will fit into the Sanctuary Theatre’s current space (watch out for the renovations happening next year). Try to catch it before the run ends on Saturday 6 September.

Rehearsal photos credit: Melissa Gordon 

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Pippin – a flower power exploration of fulfilment (BSPA at The MAC until Saturday 23 August)

The son of the king is yearning for purpose and fulfilment. His discontent with his lot as the unimpressive heir to the throne soon extends to his post-parricide disgruntlement at wielding power and his disillusionment with the love of a widow and her child.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (known for Godspell and Wicked) and book by Roger O. Hirson (with additional material by director Bob Fosse), Pippin is a lesser-known work and a challenge for the senior students at The Belfast School of Performing Arts to get their teeth into. A coming-of-age tale where an ordinary lad must overcome the voices in his head to decide for himself what it might mean to be extraordinary.

The first act’s study of flawed leadership and the king’s military calculations weighing up losses and gains have very contemporary resonances with today’s global conflicts. Other dialogue has a surprisingly modern feel. “When the king makes budget cuts, the arts are the first to go”: I had to check the script to prove that the director hadn’t added this line! And the observation that a now religiously-interested Pippin “longed to be touched by an angel” but yelps that “It wasn’t an angel who touched me!” pre-dates much of the open conversation about clerical/religious institution sex abuse, but sadly not the usually unreported occurrences.

The ruler’s court is modelled as a circus big top – full of illusion where everything is not as solid as it may seem – with eight narrators splitting the role of the ‘leading player’. Psychedelic costumes are matched by a Motown-inspired soundtrack stretching across rock, pop, R&B and beyond. There’s a dream-like quality to the original plot with recurring cheeky moments when the fourth wall is knowingly broken. As a musical, Pippin is unserious with every gloomy scene also including humour.

Oliver Chestnut plays the titular figure across all the performances, introducing his character with a solid Corner of the Sky. On the Friday evening show I attended and reviewed, Max Anderson played King Charlemagne (too frothy in the opening, but excelling in the chapel scene towards the end of the first act). Paige Kennedy is the stepmother Falstrada (with a fine Spread a Little Sunshine) alongside her macho son Lewis played by Hayden Shuttleworth (second in line to the throne, and underdeveloped in the second half of the plot). Hannah McAlister-Colacio as hippy grandmother Berthe delivers a joyful No Time At All (with “cataracts and catarrh” and the audience joining in with the chorus). In the second act, Pippin is confronted by widow Catherine (Amy Nelson, who assuredly hit the powerful high notes in Kind of Woman), Theo (Eloise Kirk, with a great sneer) and a duck called Otto (whose song Prayer for a Duck has some delightful full-cast choreography at its close).

BSPA’s traditional post-interval treat came in the form of a beautifully blended harmony rendition of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (released just one year after Pippin opened on Broadway) by Catherine Allison, Charlotte Prentice, Sophie McCullough, Sarah Kerins, Robyn Turner and Sofia Lamberton. The ensemble crank up the emotion for a stunning final number. While there are some familiar faces from previous junior and senior summer productions – Max Reid and Nina Rodrigues stand out with their confidence on stage – it’s heartening to see lots of fresh faces being enjoying the chance to be trained up to the high standard BSPA achieves each year.

This production of Pippin is strongest when the cast members throw themselves into a scene or a song with gusto. It’s not really written as a subtle piece of theatre. It requires unhindered exuberance and commitment to the silliness or seriousness of the moment. Adam Darcy has the cast singing confidently off the mix of backing tracks and live keyboard. Mira Rendilheiro’s choreography enhances the flower power vibe, though some of the interstitial routines feel very standalone and disconnected from the plot.

Director Peter Corry along with the creative and technical team have helped the cast of more than forty actors bring an unexplored musical to life. There are still a few tickets available for the Saturday matinee and evening performances at The MAC.

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Mother of All the Behans – a captivating Imelda May lights up a careful retelling of the Behan family story (Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 August)

Rich in nostalgia, Imelda May’s powerful vocals light up Mother of All the Behans. Charting the ups and downs in the life of Kathleen Behan, the one-woman show begins with Kathleen Behan in her nineties living in a home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

A bed-ridden rendition of The Red Flag pins her life-long socialist colours to the mast before racing back to her childhood in the late 1800s. On-stage pianist Sean Gilligan skilfully decorates some of the more whimsical numbers like Mrs. Hooligan’s Christmas Cake. We learn that Kathleen’s brother Peadar Kearney composed the original English lyrics of The Soldiers Song.

Peter Sheridan’s play (adapted from Brian Behan’s book) sails through Irish independence and the World Wars. By 1916, Kathleen was a courier passing messages between the barriers and hints at a deeper friendship with Michael Collins (eyerolling as she describes him being “as broad as he was wide”).

We learn of the tough times bringing up children while second husband Stephen Behan was incarcerated in Kilmainham Jail for his role in the Irish Civil War. His first view of son Brendan was from a prison window, looking down at Kathleen holding Brendan up from the street. In all, Kathleen had seven children.

The social history continues with the family moving from north side across the river to better but more isolated accommodation in Crumlin. The plight of the working class and the north/south (Dublin) divide are the strongest aspects of the early part of Sheridan’s script. The second act is as much about third son Brendan as it is about Kathleen, and it feels like the script deliberately swerves a warts and all approach and sticks to a sanitised version of the family history.

After the interval, the family’s republican sympathies and activism are less guarded and a romanticism takes over that reckons “there’s no loss greater than a loss of freedom” minutes after noting that son Brendan was sentenced to 14 years for the attempted murder of two Garda detectives, an act that could have resulted in the loss of two lives. Brendan went on to be a poet, novelist, acclaimed playwright, and alcoholic.

Having enjoyed May’s take on The Old Alarm Clock, another song from The Dubliners (The Auld Triangle) remembers the conditions in prison as “the old triangle went jingle jangle / all along the banks of the Royal Canal”.

The show finishes somewhat abruptly after the death of son Brendan and husband Stephen. While May delightfully milks the audience with her evocative rendition of Molly Malone, it feels like Kathleen’s reflections have been foreshortened.

The choreography gently circles around the simple set, though there are some jolting transitions back from younger times to frail Kathleen. The focused lighting in some scenes is overly stark, leaving May’s face shining out from the stage like a lighthouse.

Songstress Imelda May delivers a captivating performance, enlivening the script with accents and asides, and bringing her vocal talent to bear on the songs that pepper her warm monologues. On Monday evening, she also offered a great ad lib when an audience member’s lingering phone alarm interrupted the second act.

Verdant Productions’ Mother of All the Behans finishes its tour with this week’s run at the Grand Opera House (until Saturday 23 August).

Photo credit: Ros Kavanagh 

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Late Shift – an understaffed health service stresses a diligent and skilled nurse as well as her patients (Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 14 August)

In Switzerland, the trains run like clockwork, but the health service is under many of the same pressures as the rest of western Europe. When Floria arrives at work for her late afternoon/evening nursing shift, she steps out of her civvies into hospital scrubs. The team will tend to more than 20 patients – and their relatives – across the two sides of her surgical floor. The beds are full and they’re short staffed. Only two nurses and a student are on shift.

There’s an observational documentary feel to Judith Kaufmann’s cinematography in Petra Volpe’s 91-minute Late Shift, with long shots following Floria down the corridor and in and out of rooms.

An Adam Kay-inspired version of this story – or an end-of-season episode of Casualty – might have had blood spurting out of patients and dripping off the ceiling tiles. Volpe offers a much lower-key yet still thrilling depiction of what happens when a diligent and skilled health professional (“no one else ever managed that on their first attempt” admits one patient through gritted teeth) has to deal with interruption upon interruption.

The student is an extra pair of hands, but mostly burden as they’re inexperienced, unfamiliar with how everything operates, and would benefit from a lot more supervision. But today they’re being schooled in working at haste and failing to meet everyone’s needs and demands in a timely manner. The frazzling pace of work throughout the long shift perhaps explains why staff phone in sick.

One of the most valuable things Floria could offer patients is time and presence. There are people with bad news, good news, and nearly worse, still waiting with no news. But elsewhere on the floor, there’s always someone else who needs wheeled down to get a CT scan before a colleague goes home, someone else who needs painkillers, the ward round hasn’t yet been completed, relatives are phoning in to the ward phone extension she carries in her pocket, and an entitled patient in a dark wood-panelled private ward is still waiting for his cup of tea.

Floria is portrayed by Leonie Benesch with a huge dose of empathy and compassion as she speeds between the well-equipped wards checking vital signs and reacting to the latest push of a patient call button. Benesch handles the medical equipment and paraphernalia convincingly and never looks like an actor playing the role of this fraught nurse.

But accidents happen, patients are overlooked, other colleagues’ carelessness has to be tidied up, and in one – rather unconvincing and almost unnecessary instance – grace runs out and an unfiltered Floria explodes with frustration. The soundtrack tries a bit too hard to signpost that everything is about to go pear-shaped. Countering the mounting pressure, there are beautiful moments when patients help each other and reach beyond their own conditions to care for the staff.

Northern Ireland audiences will be well aware of the seemingly uncontrollable waiting lists that ill serve citizens. But the effect on care of short staffing may be less well understood unless you or a family member has been an in-patient. The moments of neglect, the instances of upset relatives, and the struggle to get everything done in the time are neither new nor shocking. The original German title of the film is Heldin. ‘Heroine’ is a more striking analysis of Floria’s performance amid a crumbling health system.

Late Shift is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 14 August.

 

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Julie – a skilful and moving tribute to an innocent 14-year-old killed as the result of a plastic bullet (Kabosh Theatre at Roddy McCorley’s as part of Féile an Phobail & then on tour)

Over many years, I’ve driven past the annual white line protest against the use of plastic bullets on my way to indoor events at Féile an Phobail. But last night’s performance of new play Julie brought home the loss and emotion that gives rise to the yearly remembrance of lives cut short.

On 12 May 1981, Julie and her slightly older sister Bernadette had nipped out of the house on a message before dinner. Hunger striker Francis Hughes had died earlier that day and the young pair passed a group of women who had been peacefully protesting. Walking back up the road, clutching her newly purchased pair of tights for a disco the next day, 14-year-old Julie Livingstone was hit on the head with a plastic bullet fired from a British Army Saladin/Saracen armoured vehicle. She was taken to hospital and died the next day. An RUC officer advised the family that they didn’t need representation at the inquest. Many months later, now with representation, and at the third inquest, Julie was deemed to be an “innocent victim”. A week later, 12-year-old Carol Ann Kelly was injured in the same way, and died a few days later.

Kabosh Theatre have a strong record of examining the legacy of the Troubles. It’s almost nine years since they premiered Laurence McKeown’s Green and Blue at Belfast International Arts Theatre. Three year’s later, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe was an electrifying retelling of a key moment in Belfast’s query history against the backdrop of the continued conflict.

Over 70 minutes, Julie’s playwright and actor Charlotte McCurry recounts the sisters’ trip down to the shops and the tragedy that followed. The audience get a strong feel for the family dynamics. McCurry uses Bernie’s senses to bring scenes to life: the scratchy fabric on chairs in the hospital waiting room, the smell of smoke on a school uniform, the stink of fish about to be served for the parish priest’s dinner. The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II on the day Julie died is skilfully woven into the narrative.

Director Paula McFetridge lets the Bernie’s powerful reminisces do the heavy lifting in this new production. Katie Richardson’s soundtrack is appropriately understated, taking its lead from the actor’s words, rather than ominously foretelling what is about to happen. Fergus Wachala-Kelly’s sea-themed animations bring the bedroom window – and sometimes the whole bedroom wall – of Tracey Lindsay’s uncluttered set to life without overtaking the primacy of the script.

Julie is a story that zeroes in on a series of women. A mother who bears this enormous grief. A teenager who is incredibly close to her youngest sister and overwhelmed by what happens. The woman who was leading the protesters in prayer and drove the girls to hospital. The lumpy-nosed housekeeper in the parochial house. Women who all found different ways of coping with the burdens life thrusts into their paths.

McCurry’s script and performance are a beautiful tribute to her Aunt Julie. Her adept writing silently evokes questions about modern legacy investigations, collusion and what justice means for families. The style of confident delivery keeps the audience’s attention. By the time Bernie is recalling Julie’s funeral, the emotional heft of the story is incredibly well established, and these final moments are exceptionally moving.

Following this week’s sold out run at Roddy McCorley Heritage Centre as part of Féile an Phobail, Kabosh Theatre will tour the play to the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy (Sunday 10 August – a single ticket remains), The Playhouse in Derry (Friday 15 and Saturday 16), and the Old Church in Cushendun (Sunday 17 – sold out). Each performance is followed by a short post-show discussion.

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The Tunnel – unearthing prisoner experiences from mid-1970s Long Kesh (Brassneck Theatre Company at Lyric Theatre as part of Féile an Phobail until Saturday 16 August)

Terry George’s play The Tunnel was first performed in New York back in 1986. Forty years later it’s receiving its Irish premiere as part of Féile an Phobail on the Lyric Theatre’s main stage. Back then, it would be another 12 years before the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was signed, and 14 years before the early release of prisoners. That must have been a very different environment to perform and witness the play. Minor aspects of the script have clearly been updated for this run, now directed by the playwright, most noticeably to add a gag about how unlikely it would be that a prisoner could become Minister of Education.

The action all takes place inside one of the prisoner of war Nissen huts that became the Long Kesh/Maze jail outside Lisburn. Ciarán Bagnall’s set design captures the curved corrugated iron sheeting and the relatively cramped conditions of the hut, although we only ever see six men in a space that would normally have held many, many more. Prison guards are spied through the hut window but their personalities don’t form part of this inside story.

Top dog Frank is played by Chris Corrigan, controlling the flow of information and keeping order among his fellow inmates with an iron fist, backed up by a supposedly flimsy understanding of Marxist ideology and a Che Guevara poster. ‘BB’ is his right-hand man (Andy Doherty), more brawn than brain, and the internal censor of prisoner mail. Vincent Higgins’s character Barney is in charge of the decidedly home brew but moral boosting efforts to distil poitín. Other background details are gradually revealed – he has been inside half the jails on the island of Ireland and was one of the ‘hooded men’ – before Higgins delivers a final twist.

The enclosed environment with prison officers forever riling the inmates creates a seedbed of suspicion. Every new prisoner is assumed to be a tout until trust is earned, and even long-term mates can find their past reexamined. Joe (Oisín Thompson) is just beginning his ten-year sentence. Harry is a happy-go-lucky trickster who gentle hazes new inmates as part of their induction to life inside with Ciaran Nolan revelling in being the source of most of the show’s humour. Cillian Lenaghan briefly appears in the second act as Francis to advance the plot’s sense of urgency.

There’s a lot of dramatic licence at play in The Tunnel. The familiar and oft-repeated stories and lore that the prisoners tell each other come very thick and fast in the compressed timeframe of the play. The Tunnel mostly avoids hagiography and never indulges in celebrating the deeds that led to the incarceration – fair or framed – of its characters. Neither does it become a sop to republican mythology. While there’s a lot of talk about resisting oppression, George isn’t afraid of showing that the prison guards were not the only people handing out beatings, organising interrogations, and delivering summary justice.

An intense Martin McCann brings the quiet but determined Seánie to life, a republican hero who has turned his back on any ambition to have a leadership role in Long Kesh. Instead, he’s become the most disillusioned of the inmates, ready to question nearly everything that drove him to prison. He keeps his head above water by planning the titular tunnel escape (a fictionalised version that echoes some of the real attempts), egged on by disturbing rumours that have begun to circulate about his family situation back home in Newry. The guys are living in the hut closest to the outside wall, and the ongoing construction of the more solid H-Block accommodation means that time is running out. But there’s a risk that the inmates will be simply digging their own graves?

Garth McConaghie’s percussive soundtrack is based on bodhrán and it feels like we could be listening to the authentic sounds of prisoners enjoying improvised drums during a locked-in seisiún. The song I Believe In Miracles played over the tannoy towards the end of the interval on press night neatly setting up the second act. Rosie McClelland’s costumes also come into their own after the interval, with the soiled digging apparel painting the picture of the unseen strenuous effort.

It’s possible to have empathy for these prisoners – largely due to the external pressures they’re facing on top of their confinement – without sympathising with the reason they are in prison. The story of each inmate’s challenged perceptions and how they have been adapting, dreaming or giving up all hope adds depth. One way and another, all seven men are seeking an escape from more than just incarceration. George has created a cleverly written social history of the experience of republican prisoners in the mid 1970s, a period when he was locked up in the huts around which the play is centred.

Produced by Brassneck Theatre Company and Seamus Productions, The Tunnel continues its run in the Lyric Theatre until Saturday 16 August as part of Féile an Phobail.

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Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams – knitting a blurred boundary between infatuated fact and fiction (Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 7 August)

High school student Johanne has a crush on Johanna, a teacher who takes her for a couple of subjects. At first, it’s an internalised teenage infatuation, but slowly it begins to affect Johanne’s mood, attendance and wellbeing. In the film’s most difficult to swallow moment, 17-year-old Johanne and Johanna begin to meet regularly outside school setting off safeguarding alarm bells in the audience’s minds but never in the thoughts of the film’s characters. (The second pill to swallow is why textile design-trained Johanne is teaching French!)

Norwegian screenwriter and director Dag Johan Haugerud laces Dreams – part of a trilogy (with some gentle cross-over appearances) that also includes Sex and Love – with a heavy swig of ambiguity. The power of books to open up imagination and self-growth is introduced. What nearly feels like a 70-minute film extends for another 40 minutes to see the fallout when, a year later, Johanne shares her intimate memoir/novel with family members, making them aware of how she wants to remember her secret relationship with Johanna. Her grandmother and mother read and react in very different ways, and proceed to flip positions over time as insecurities emerge.

Ella Øverbye plays the gifted linguist and talented dance student who narrates around half of this pleasantly but unusually constructed film. Øverbye takes Johanne from yearning to obsession and back. Hints are planted that her teacher (played by Selome Emnetu with gentle warmth until a more defensive coldness envelopes her persona) may not be as innocent as we witness on screen. Without getting too spoilerific, Haugerud also allows us to witness the teacher’s impression of the one-sided work of autofiction, making the audience further question who was doing the grooming and how deep any actual abuse goes.

A grandmother’s dreams of success as a poet are undermined by a precocious greanddaughter’s potential to publish a feminist bestseller or a tale of queer awakening. A single mother’s love life is rattled by her daughter’s intimate revelations, whether they’re real or imagined. By the end, we’ll find out how Johanne looks back on this period and if she can move forward. Does a first love have a positive or negative legacy?

The sets are almost as gorgeous as Johanna’s knitware. Haugerud storytelling and Cecilie Semec’s cinematography are dominated by the ascent and descent of stairs (along with a neat shot of tea brewing). These scenes are beautiful to watch, symbolic, and moments to consider where to move the line between truth and fiction! The single scene with freeze frame jars and unfortunately feels out of place.

Dreams is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 7 August. The other parts of the trilogy will also be screened during the month of August: Love from Friday 15, and Sex from Friday 22.

  

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