Robert
Burns’ poem
Tam O’ Shanter
refers to a figure “Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.” Pretty much
every character in Brian Friel’s 1964 breakthrough play is similarly
nursing their loss, or losses; however, far from displaying them
indulgently, they clasp them close and get on with unexceptional,
unexciting life in the fictional Co. Donegal village of Ballybeg in
which most of Friel’s dramas are set.
In the final hours before he emigrates to the City of Brotherly Love,
Gar O’Donnell tries to connect, and paradoxically also to avoid
connecting
too closely with,
various folk around him: his widowed father, who keeps the village’s
general store; his well-off beloved, who married a doctor when Gar
failed to summon up the nerve to ask for her hand; the village lads,
all mouth and no trousers; and so on. We are given an insight into
Gar’s head, and into his own insights about the others, by Friel’s
device of splitting the character between two actors. Paul Reid’s
Public Gar is polite, diffident, and much more irresolute than his
Private self, whom Rory Keenan voices with torrents of cynicism and,
just when you least expect it, the occasional heartbreaking monologue.
Lyndsey Turner’s revival is a fine piece of ensemble work. Actors like
James Hayes as Gar’s father S.B. (Private Gar consistently refers to
him as “Screwballs”), Laura Donnelly as the might-have-been Kate, and
especially Valerie Lilley as the O’Donnells’ housekeeper, Gar’s dead
mother’s sister, all make their individual mark, but never bid for
undue attention amid the big picture of small lives. Rob Howell’s
design is a beautiful impressionistic portmanteau affair which folds
the store, living room and Gar’s bedroom all more or less into the same
space. Astute casting of Irish actors and the dialect coaching of Tim
Charrington mean not only that Friel’s natural ear for the rhythms and
cadences of north-west Irish speech is respected, but even that the
region’s medial “y” is deliciously audible when, for instance, Kate
calls the protagonist “Gyar”. It is a poignant collective portrait of
the impossibility of leaving behind one’s own past, nor of living in
it. Josie Rourke’s programming in her first year at the Donmar
continues to be impressive and stimulating.
Written for the Financial
Times.