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 Compensations
Reviewed in The Bulletin, 20 June 2002 by Gary Hills
The Irish are renowned for their love of story-telling and recent new work
for the stage has capitalised on the concept, particularly with smash hits
like Connor McPherson’s The Weir. So when a new piece of Irish writing appears
in Brussels written by locals, hopes and expectations are raised.
Loretta Stanley and Andrew McIlroy scored a new high for the ITG, having
written and directed a play of monologues based around four characters.
The play is human and touching with an eye to detail, pinpointing the tiny
gestures and ways of speaking that make us what we are. On the surface,
each character tells their own story, yet it is in their opinions of each
other that the real truths are told.
The four actors, Stanley, McIlroy, Isabel Walsh and Nikki Johnston took
on the rigours of monologue with apparent ease and made sure the audience
listened, although the classic middle-distance eye-fix meant that not all
the audience were embraced. None of the characters were particularly likeable
with their self-pity, petty concerns and loose loves, but they were real,
they breathed, they were alive and they reached out to us. They were played
with skill and conviction, although the fine line between actors’ own personalities
and their fictional counterparts was sometimes a little blurred.
The play would now benefit from some further development. Greater irony
would give the piece an edge, perhaps a bigger gap between self-perceptions
and those of others, or a take on one incident from the four viewpoints.
In short, more precise conflict. The recorded monologue is a lengthy mistake;
making an audience listen for so long with only a lifeless body as a live-theatre
metaphor is a step too far.
Taking time to revisit the structure of this play is worth doing. It’s original
and it has an emotionally stirring quality. Supported by ITG’s strong production
standards, and with one of the writer-actor-directors sitting on the outside
to concentrate on shape and form, it could easily go on to inspire a wider
audience on the main stage.
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