THE WALWORTH FARCE. To 29 November.
London.
THE WALWORTH FARCE
by Enda Walsh.
Cottesloe Theatre In rep to 29 November 2008.
7.30, Mat Sat 2.30, Tues & Sat also Thurs Nov 27
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/tickets
Review: Carole Woddis 26 September 2008.
When Oirish eyes get frightening.
When it comes to their own, the Irish take a bleakly dark view of things. Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce takes place near the Elephant and Castle in south London. In Sabine Dargent’s filthily decaying interior it might, though, just as easily be in a grungy council flat off the Kilburn High Road. Kilburn is, after all, traditionally the home of London’s Irish community.
But tradition is precisely the notion Walsh is taking apart here. In a terrifying exercise in grand guignol, Walsh displays the same comic ferocity as his half-compatriot Martin McDonagh – a writer also known for his violence and gallows humour and who, like Walsh, has been championed by Galway’s small but inspired Druid Theatre.
Like McDonagh, Walsh is a satirist, his characters grotesques, in appearance and in behaviour. And there’s the rub. Walsh is undoubtedly one of the brightest sparks in the new writing firmament (Disco Pigs, Chatroom, The New Electric Ballroom and the soon to be seen at the Barbican Delirium). And The Walworth Farce itself finishes on a note of such internalised terror, I came out literally shaking.
For all that, it’s hard going. The satire is deliberately laboured as we watch play-acting father Dinny putting his two adult sons, Sean and Blake, through their paces (and into a dizzying number of frocks and wigs) in a script retelling a family tale of greed, adultery, murder interspersed with folksy Irish songs. Stuck in the past, the play-acting is both national metaphor and a theatrical reality. The atmosphere drips sentimental `Oirish’ nostalgia and from the audience point of view, confusion.
It’s only in the desperate second half that the dark belly of the beast – Dinny’s twisted parental protectiveness, the kind made infamous this year by the case of Josef Fritzl – really takes hold and we see the extent of Walsh’s dramaturgical skill and the damage fear of the world outside can create.
The Walworth Farce in Druid Theatre director Mikel Murfi’s hands is definitely an acquired taste. Wait patiently, though, and it becomes a shattering experience powered by extraordinary performances.
Dinny: Denis Conway.
Sean: Tadhg Murphy.
Blake: Garrett Lombard.
Hayley: Mercy Ojelade.
Director: Mikel Murfi.
Designer: Sabine Dargent.
Lighting: Paul Keogan.
Re-Lighting: Barry O’Brien.
2008-10-05 01:26:49