BY THE BOG OF CATS. To 26 February.
London
BY THE BOG OF CATS
by Marina Carr
Wyndhams Theatre To 26 February 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat + 21.30 Dec 3pm no performance 25,27 Dec, 1 Jan
Audio-described 2 Feb
BSL Signed 26 Jan
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 060 6633
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 December
A brave, serious choice for the West End, even with a Hollywood star. But it needs concentration.The title might be an oath (You'll pay for this, by the Bog of Cats), its meaning shrouded in the mists of time. But no, it's a place, with its own song about finding the truth in love, so there's little surprise in finding our old fiend Medea as the source Marina Carr's decided to Irish-ise.
The Irish hallmarks are all there: the country girl with wild hair and temper, poetic formality of language, a comic priest, the statutory Cusack. Indeed Sorcha Cusack's Monica is the only one of this little community expressing a wish to escape from the place, little suited to her benign manner.
For if Bog of Cats doesn't sound gloomy enough, the first sight of Holly Hunter's Hester Swane dragging on her near-namesake, a black swan for burial should make the point. If not, there's Hester's immediate sighting of The Ghost Fancier who has a word about mortality to say to her.
The first act's disparate scenes make tough going; without the Medea parallel, it's necessary to listen very hard to pick up the back-story and piece relationships together. The second act provides moments of action and humour, bleak though they are in this setting. It also allows Holly Hunter's intensity to develop trampling over the wedding-table where her child's father's marrying a rich farmer's daughter, speaking of guilt to her dead brother's ghost, showing a moment's apparent sympathy for her rival and agony over losing her daughter.
The angled gestures, the determined face show Hunter as anyone's Medea. Her relentless quality is positive except in the Irish tones which become rather monotonous in phrasing and inflection. But words, words, words is the play's main problem, which Dominic Cooke's efficient production does nothing to ameliorate.
Thematically, the sense of belonging and yet being an outsider are intriguing. But the force 8 language gale becomes self-defeating and the most telling moments are the sparest Denise Gough's pale bride voicing in a question her sense there's something wrong with her, a dying child's call to her mother. Elsewhere, this Bog risks getting lost in a mound of words.
Hester Swane: Holly Hunter
The Ghost Fancier: Darren Greer
Monica Murray: Sorcha Cusack
Josie Kilbride: Kate Costello/Ellie Flynn-Watterson/Chloe O'Sullivan
Mrs Kilbride: Barbara Brennan
Catwoman: Brid Brennan
Carthage Kilbride: Gordon MacDonald
Caroline Cassidy: Denise Gough
Xavier Cassidy: Trevor Cooper
Young Dunne: Warren Rusher
Waitresses: Colette Kelly, Aoife Madden
Father Willow: Patrick Waldron
Joseph Swane: Adam Best
Director: Dominic Cooke
Designer: Hildegard Bechtler
Lighting: Jean Kalman
Sound: Gareth Fry
Music: Gary Yershon
Movement: Liz Ranken
Dialect coach: Joan Washington
Dialect consultant: Brendan Gunn
Fight director: Terry King
Assistant director: Hannah Eidinow
2004-12-07 00:11:29