THE CAVALCADERS by Billy Roche. Tricycle Theatre to 9 February.

London

THE CAVALCADERS
by Billy Roche

Tricycle Theatre To 9 February 2002
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 020 7328 1000
Review Timothy Ramsden 7 January

A fine, melancholy and haunting play given a superbly acted production.Memory haunts the action of Roche's small-town Ireland play, receding from the present day as Terry hands over the keys of his shoe repair shop, to the glory days when its four workers doubled as close-harmony group The Cavalcaders. For some, memories, loyalties and betrayals spill further back.

In the dimly-lit present Terry's piano is to be abandoned to an attic; he recalls the day when it was ushered in to his shop by most of the town, to be centre of hismusical activities. We never see that scene, but through his memory Terry summons up the discords which broke up the group.

Liam Cunningham vividly shows the flashing anger Terry has stoked up. It's unleashed on various people, but mostly on mentally challenged young Nuala, whose love he takes without return. She at least has consistency in her feelings, which his emotional volatility cannot imagine. In a well-handled revelation across the years, Roche shows the tragic result of this. It says a lot for the writing, Robin Lefevre's minutely balanced production and Cunningham's powerful performance that when guilt and regret finally concentrate the pain in his own head it's possible to feel sympathy for him.

Lefevre matches the speeded-up present/past switches and the greater confluence between the two times that comes later in the second act (if there's a limitation to the play's success it lies in the large number of brief scenes rushed through near the end). Liz Ascroft's set catches the faded reality of the shop, and, in the street and buildings glimpsed through the windows, a small-town sense of everything being close together.

There's one really beautiful woman in the town, and of course we never see her. She remained as unattainable for these characters as the money in the bank where she worked. The acting we do see is splendid, including Roche himself as the illness-fated peacemaker in the quartet, and the contrasting women, Dawn Bradfield's vulnerable Nuala and Ingrid Craigie as the solid Breda, the one person who gives up dreaming to wait for what she wants to come her way.

Terry: Liam Cunningham
Rory: Andrew Scott
Ted: David Ganly
Josie: Billy Roche
Breda: Ingrid Craigie
Nuala: Dawn Bradfield

Director: Robin Lefevre
Designer: Liz Ascroft
Lighting: Mick Hughes
Music: Clement Ishmael
Choreographer: Gillian Gregory

2002-01-08 00:39:18