by Rose Rushe
THE play ‘Moment’ by Deirdre Kinahan that is current at No. 69 O’Connell Street melds various genres: kitchen sink, the tyranny of family, catalytic stranger, the ghost of times past. Yet it does so coolly in a form most natural and credible. Quarry Players have done well to nail it.
The kitchen table is arena for the Lynch family pitted against the past when son Neil (Nigel Dugdale) not so much returns to the fold but is hauled there by his new and knowing wife, Ruth (Eukaria O’Grady). Ruth proves to be the outsider in all sorts of ways. She is British, forgiving and living in the present, anxious for the family to be one. Her belief in her man is whole.
No such luck for those whom Neil left behind when ‘doing time’ in prison for a vicious crime.
The horror of what happened at the hands of kin, how the community convulsed, how his sisters Niamh (Deirdre Flynn, formidable) and Ciara (Niamh O’Mara, the pet) are dealing with this reality and the collapse of their parents into death (Dad) or nerves and denial (Bernie Hayes as the mother figure) is plumbed.
Kinahan is great in that she sketches no archetypes. The love stories, between partners and generations, are strong but do they save?
What she does rob us of is mystery, and there-in lies the rub. Is ‘Moment’ better for being confessional?
Director John Anthony Murphy has worked his cast hard to make this dynamic so watchable. The capable Tim Evans and Kevin Bradshaw flesh out the Lynches in this minty Ikea-fit designed for reboot at a different site that cannot close the portal on what is done.
Book via the Lime Tree Theatre’s website on www.limetreetheatre.ie for a ticket or head for box office at 69 O’Connell Street daily until Saturday March 14, 8pm.
