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Slick, well cast production by Zelig Theatre E-mail
Written by Administrator   
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Galway's Zelig Theatre, a troupe born during last year's Project '06 festival, re-run their popular production of Martin McDonagh's profoundly cynical 'The Cripple of Inishmaan' at the Town Hall Theatre. It is a slick and well-cast outing for this troubling play.

London Irishman, Broadway darling and black-humour's lodestar McDonagh might have some of theatre's denizens believing that Irish island living was cruel, heartless, cold and ultimately pessimistic. In this rather bleak situation comedy, an orphan, the eponymous 'cripple', is cared for by two 'pretend' Aunts on the literarily and figuratively barren Island of Inishmaan. Fed up with incessant teasing by the locals, Cripple Billy sets out to overcome the limitations of that world when (real-life) Robert J Flaherty arrives to film his semi-fictional documentary, ' Man of Aran', on the islands.

By locating his action on the islands and in the social context of 1934, McDonagh distances the play from the modern-day mainland of western civilisation in order to satirise it. This is just enough to allow him the licence to repeat jokes about sexuality, sex, disability, the emotionally 'crippled' islanders and, indeed, any other stand-up gag about Irish people that would have a comedian blacklisted by a platoon of P.C. police. Sketch in expletives, violence, alcoholism, disease and anachronistic, populist digs at the clergy, and McDonagh completes his drawing of Inishmaan as a microcosm of the dysfunctional world.

Such a common literary device works best when the audience and analogous situation are miles apart. To the glitterati of the West End and Broadway, the Aran Islands are a far-off distopia or twilight zone where clearly anything goes and so this dramatised cartoon hits home. However, playing in Galway, where the distance is removed, the message might be confused. Surely McDonagh is not stating that the isles just off our shores were peopled by these 'Men of Aran': an almost entirely cruel, unfortunate, misogynist, racist and bigoted breed of blackguard?

Despite all attempts to disapprove, however, audiences find the provocative McDonagh makes exceedingly funny plays. With this in mind, Zelig Theatre go for broke with their zippy production. Under notably detailed and careful lighting by Sonia Sweeney, director Cathal Cleary's local actors handle the taut dialogue and swift, clever exchanges fluently, particularly in the 'Cinema Scene'. The slapstick and general stage business is efficient and well timed.

Brendan Ryan's consistently physical performance as 'Cripple Billy' is more than competent, Ciara Delaney and Saileog O'Halloran deal with the stock-in-trade Irishy biddies well, and Lorcan Kenny as Bartley is a believably self-centred, thoughtless adolescent. John O'Dowd is appropriately enigmatic as Babbybobby and both Sarah Jayne Kelly as the alcoholic auld Mammy and Matt Delaney as her perplexed doctor inhabit their roles well.

Rocking this granite island, however, are Martina Carey as Slippy Helen and Mike King as matricidal gossipmonger Johnnypateenmike. Creating a patina of abrupt and appalling callousness, Carey explores her character's insecurities with clarity and spot-on comic timing. King, though a little over dependent on clutching his lapels, fills the Town Hall with an impressively stentorian brogue.

Zelig Theatre have heralded their arrival onto the mainstage with confidence, determination and, indeed, admirably declamatory tones.


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