MOLLY SWEENEY. To 17th April.

Tour

MOLLY SWEENEY
by Brian Friel.

Forest Forge Theatre Company tour to 17 April 2003.
Runs: 2 hr 35 min One interval.
Review: Mark Courtice 15 March at Hordle WI Hall.

Not so much to look at, even when the blind can see.This is a series of interlocking monologues; from Molly, who is blind; her husband Frank; a man of little ambition (except on Molly's behalf) and great knowledge of little things; and Mr Rice, an ophthalmologist whose early ambition has been brought low by bitterness against the wife who ran off with a colleague and the drink he uses to drown his feelings.

This play is full of ideas about vision, understanding, light and darkness, community, and the peculiar strength that comes from knowing your world, albeit through touch and smell. Both Frank and Mr Rice want Molly to have an operation so she can see, Rice because it is a way out of his exile, while for Frank it's a more interesting project than working.

Molly starts as the most centred and content of the three - an operation may destroy more than congenital cataracts. Rice carries out the operation, and it's only later that he admits that the bitter outcome is what happens to everyone who tries it.

Forest Forge tour to village halls and other small venues, and although it might seem a good idea to present an almost action-less work on these small stages, this play seems to have forsworn the best that theatre has to offer. Friel's perversity is to make theatre that ignores two of its most potent elements, with no direct action or dialogue - both come only as reported.

This is an honest production full of integrity. Director David Haworth has been Forest Forge's designer for 10 years, and it shows. Countryman Frank's part of the stage is blue/green, Molly (a therapeutic masseuse) is in white, Mr Rice in pipe-dottle and whiskey brown.

The actors pitch the performances well for the surroundings of a village hall - everything energetically loud to overcome wayward acoustics. All three give skilful performances but the characters need space, and to touch and to talk to each other in a way Friel denies.

Brendan Fleming's Frank is both attractive and weak, an interesting combination; and Cerianne Roberts makes Molly's struggle moving and intense.

Frank Sweeney: Brendan Fleming.
Mr Rice: Clive Holland.
Molly Sweeney: Cerianne Roberts.

Director/Designer: David Hayworth.

2003-03-21 02:14:26