THE HOME PLACE. To 13 August

London

THE HOME PLACE
by Brian Friel

Comedy Theatre To 13 August 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 10-min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 060 6622
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 May 2005

Time's up for colonists nice or nasty in Friel's latest drama.A windowed partition looks out from a room to a view of an Englishman's estate in 1878 Donegal. Trees cover the rear stage; down front a collection of photos hang over a fireplace half out of sight. It might be Chekhov, with whose work both author and director have credentials. But this is a 3-scene, 2-act drama set, with Classical unity, on a single day, replacing Chekhov's spread of understanding with a focus on one event. It's a full-length piece that's almost anecdotal.

The long first scene gives a convincing portrait of the way feelings become inbred in landed estate life (there's something Chekhovian here). Benevolent landlord Christopher Gore (a neat modern informality when he's called Chris) desires his housekeeper Margaret, a generation the old man's junior. She loves his son David, but won't go along with his vague elopement plans.

Her practicality confounds the stereotype of dreamy Celt against practical Saxon. Which would confuse newly-arrived Richard Gore, using his brother's tenants for tests into racial typing, measuring faces and noting features. For him the local people are specimens and inferiors. It provokes a response from the local boys, which kindly Christopher is unable to quell. His defeated authority's soon reflected in increased prices for provisions.

And brings on a crisis of self-confidence, which Tom Courtenay handles finely, the sense of inner shame seeping effortlessly out in his withdrawn behaviour. Till then his performance has been contrastingly mannered, with vocal swings and multiple gestures. By contrast, Nick Dunning's unsympathetic brother has throughout a sharp-eyed, brisk-voiced callousness.

The home place is where you come from; Ballybeg for Margaret, for Christopher, Kent. It's an insuperable divide when their home places have a colonial relationship. Tactfully played (though the production might have less stagey starving peasants), with Derbhla Crotty's Margaret a strong, intelligent centre to the separate, if simultaneous, worlds, the play is minor Friel (the English Chris/Richard contrast was just one thread of Translations). But that's as good, or better, than most get and the final (again Chekhovian) image of trees, and Christopher, being marked with whitewash for destruction as dead wood, is striking.

Margaret O' Donnell: Derbhle Crotty
Sally Cavanagh: Laura Jane Laughlin
Con Doherty: Adam Fergus
Johnny MacLoone: Michael Judd
Christopher Gore: Tom Courtenay
David Gore: Hugh O' Conor
Dr Richard Gore: Nick Dunning
Perkins: Sean Murray
Clement O' Donnell: Harry Towb
Mary Sweeney: Brenda Larby
Tommy Boyle: Leagh Conwell/Joe Gunn/Nicky Mulligan
Maisie McLaughlin: Reanna Calvert/Olivia Ford/Jodie McLaren

Director: Adrian Noble
Designer/Costume: Peter McKintosh
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: Gregory Clarke
Voice coach: Cathal Quinn
Associate director: Joe Harmston

2005-05-27 14:44:50