PORTIA COUGHLAN. Man in the Moon to 2 February.
London
PORTIA COUGHLIN
by Marina Carr
Strawberry Theatre Company at the Man in the Moon To 2 February 2002
Runs 1hr 55min One interval
TICKETS 020 7351 2876/5701
Review Timothy Ramsden 27 January
A powerful Irish play proves explosive in a small room in Chelsea: shortcomings of performance are over-ridden by dramatic force.Portia Coughlin and Hedda Gabler would have a lot to talk about; both are frustrated in marriages with emotionally tepid men. Though Hedda might blanche at some of Portia's outbursts against her husband, 'Light no more candles for me for fear I blind you with them'.
Hedda's death is the climax of her play. Portia dies at the interval, on her 30th birthday. It's fair enough; life was bisected on her 15th when Gabriel, her golden-voiced twin, drowned himself in what he thought was a suicide pact. But she held back; the second half of her life has been her punishment.
It's easy to dismiss Portia up to her death - drunk by 10am, sour-faced and sexually promiscuous. She only married Raphael for his name, someone says. True, but not as people believe. It wasn't the respectable Coughlan identity she craved but the name Raphael, angelically linking with her dead brother.
Only when she's resurrected from drunken stupor in act two and what her angry grandmother Blaize calls 'the history of your blood,' flows out, is her behaviour explained.
As Maggie May, Portia's resilient ex-whore aunt, puts it, life's either fate or human choice. She prefers fate to take the rap. It's less easy for Portia, for whom death was, 'where she was going from the day she was born.' Despite uneven acting and dodgy Oirish tones, Jeff Moody's production conveys the power of Carr's play – I'd expect to see many more proficiently acted shows biff home with less than half its force. Llinos Daniel could offer a wider expressive range but gives a keen sense of mystical longing and slatternly aggression clashing in a doomed personality. And there's a strong performance from Arthur Kohn as Portia's father, trying to keep peace as the women, in whom family sense predominates, bitterly fight.
Video inserts, often backed by Daniel's lyrical harp playing, emphasise both Portia's longing and the relentless presence of the dead Gabriel's bright-eyed gaze. A huge web looms behind the action, occasionally entombing Portia – making it strange no designer is credited.
Portia Coughlin: Llinos Daniel
Raphael Coughlin: Jamie Roberts
Marianne Scully: Frances Allen
Sly Scully: Arthur Kohn
Maggie May Doorley: Maggie Robson
Senchil Doorley: Craig Karpel/Rodd Melville
Blaize Scully: Deidre Flood
Stacia Doyle: Lyn Fernee
Damus Halion: Steve Cosier
Fintan Goolan: Oliver Pitt
Director: Jeff Moody
Lighting: Steve Miller
Camera: Darryl Fedeski
Editing: Alistair Fergusson/Mark Graham
Photography: Ken Govier
2002-02-01 00:41:33