The Weir
Conor McPherson
Directed by Adele Thomas
Designed by Madeleine Girling
Composer Richard Hammerton
English Touring Theatre
2017 Tour
Poole Lighthouse
7th November 2017
CAST
John O’Dowd – Jim
Louis Dempsey – Finbar
Sam O’Mahony – Brendan
Natalie Radmall-Quirke – Valerie
Sean Murray – Jack
L to R: Jack, Jim, Brendan, Valerie, Finbar
The Weir dates from 1997, and won the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play. It’s one of Michael Billington’s 100 Greatest Plays and confirms my suspicion that producers are using the book as a guide to future productions, or maybe Mr Billington just knew the right choices. This revival follows the highly-rated Conor McPherson play Girl From The North Country at the Old Vic, moving now to The West End. We were delighted to see a decent play coming to Poole Lighthouse, which otherwise seems to miss the major tours. Let’s hope they continue to have the same plays as Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, and Bristol Old Vic.
It is a serious play, and an unusual one. This English Touring Theatre production has a meticulously detailed setting in a rural pub in Leitrim, in the North West of Eire. It’s the most sparsely populated county in Ireland, with just 31,000 people. We went to the pre-show talk, where they said it was Ireland’s loneliest county. They explained that they even used 1996 money on stage to keep total authenticity. The production also has a fascinatingly subtle lighting plot by Lee Curran, constantly shifting, but you never notice the shift until you realise that the person narrating has the light focus on them, and the listeners in the background are now in much lower light. There are frequent low level noise effects … wind, music sometimes.
Not much happens. Jack arrives in the isolated rural pub, which is called The Weir, helps himself to a drink, carefully putting the money in the till for it, then Brendan the barman comes out. Jim arrives and we hear he is looking after an invalid Mammy. These are the regulars. There is nowhere else to go. They chat about Finbar, the wealthiest guy from the village, who has been showing a new arrival, Valerie, around the area and who will be bringing her to the pub. Finbar moved away years ago to open a hotel in Carrick. This is scandalous because he’s a married man, and they suspect his motives. Valerie is from Dublin. None of the three men have partners. This is a totally male environment, and the appearance of a woman will be novel, and change relationships. It’s so long since a woman was there that they’ve never got round to repairing the ladies toilet in the pub. It’s only used by “The Germans” when they arrive in the summer.
Jack (Sean Murray)
Finbar turns up with Valerie in tow, there is quite a bit if humour when she asks for wine. This is a beer and whisky establishment. They start telling stories … this happens quite organically … and all the stories have a supernatural bent … fairies and ghosts. Jack starts it off with a story about a fairy road which happens to run through the house Valerie has moved to. Finbar takes over with a scarier story. The supernatural element is increasing. Then Jim tells a really creepy story … these are all from their experiences. Valerie tells a deeply disturbing extremely sad personal story that tops all of them. Then the last fifteen minutes or so (the play is 100 minutes, no interval) are something of a downbeat or soft ending, not any kind of climax. The centrepiece of the end section is a sad recollection from Jack, explaining why he is alone. The top of the trajectory of the play was reached with Valerie’s story.
There is strong character differentiation which reveals a growing awareness about each off the men for the audience.
Finbar (Louis Dempsey)
So a lot of the play is monologue narrative with four other people listening silently. They excel at listening too, particularly Brendan, the barman, who never gets to tell a long tale. The exchanges of dialogue are sharply written in between with flashes of humour. All the acting is of very high quality, with gripping narration. So we’re in an Irish storytelling tradition. McPherson is quoted in the programme (as is Michael Billington):
(The Weir’s appeal) is its dogged insistence on story-telling. The hunger for a story with a beginning, a middle and end is huge. It’s very ancient because it’s very satisfying. It sounds simple, but it’s actually very hard to do.
The storytelling (and attentive listening from the rest) is superb, though my companion found a problem with low level projection combined with strong Irish accents. Thus Valerie, whose Dublin inflection was extremely slight, sounded very close to RP, and was easily the clearest for her to follow. She sounded closer to RP English than Dublin to me, but maybe that’s simply highly educated Dublin. Certainly the text for her lines lacks the strong “Irishisms” of the other speakers. I took about five minutes to accustom myself to the rural Irish accents, then I was fine.
L to R: Jack (Sean Murray), Brendan (Sam O’Mahony), Valerie (Natalie Radmall-Quirke)
To be, as Michael Billington suggests, one of the 100 Greatest Plays you surely need multiple different productions to show what is the text and what is production. For that reason, I think his inclusion of Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, based on just the original production, is premature. Yes, it’s one of the very best plays I’ve ever seen, but what would it be like without Ian Rickson’s direction (he also directed the original production of The Weir), and the performances of Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook? We’ll find out in 2018 when The Watermill Theatre does it. King Charles III is another based on one production. In contrast, after twenty years, The Weir has had a number of productions, and Billington describes three, and the programme points out the it can be done on a virtually bare stage as the text creates the pub and the barren area and the wind. I’m delighted it was done on such a richly dressed stage tonight though.
It is a richly atmospheric, and unsettling play. It has great narrative power which is really from a whole other tradition. It is low on normal “theatricality” which includes movement, music and dramatic interaction for us. I don’t rate it quite as highly as Michael Billington does in 100 Greatest Plays, but you might be able to persuade me on Girl From The North Country which has those elements.
****
WHAT THE PAPERS SAID
Ann Cox, Stage Review *****
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ****
Except they didn’t. Not the nationals anyway. They really should be reviewing the ETT which brings first-rate productions like this to provincial theatres, in this case nine of them. If it ran for 9 weeks in London, Stratford, Bath or Chichester, it would be reviewed in the nationals.
CONOR McPHERSON LINK:
Girl From The North Country, Old Vic, 2017
LOUIS DEMPSEY
The Taming Of The Shrew, Globe 2016 (Vincentio)
Peter Viney's Blog 