****THEATRE REVIEW****

GAME OF TWO HALVES TWO DIRECTORS AND TWO WEEKS FOR KILCULLEN DRAMA GROUP 

By James Healy

The latest production from Kilcullen Drama Group, a comedy thriller entitled Theft, opened in early December for a two week run at the local theatre.

The storyline features a burglar caught in the act of breaking and entering by a group of householders. The burglar is a talkative fellow with a wry take on life and the householders guarding him end up learning more about themselves than they ever really wanted to.

The premise of the play might be summed up with a line from the burglar: “When our leaders become thieves, then our thieves must become leaders.”

I attended the Friday night Gala performance of Theft which saw an able cast quickly getting to grips with this intriguing concept.

Some of Kilcullen’s most well walked actors took on what was assuredly a challenging script and brought it to rib tickling life.

Vivian Clarke, played John the owner of the burgled house. Mr Clarke evoked the character of a ruthless businessman with gusto. The audience was left in no doubt as to who was the real thief. As an actor, Mr Clarke clearly enjoyed the contradictions of the role from the word go. His maniacal brandishing of a gun at the poor burglar provided some chaotic moments of high comedy. Mr Clarke has a talent for ensemble playing and is at his best in the scenes with Fergal Sloan and Philomena Breslin.

Fergal Sloan as Trevor wrestling with an unexpected temptation to steal from his oldest friend.

Fergal Sloan as John’s friend Trevor revelled in his role. He is a physical actor with a striking presence on stage. Mr Sloan’s character knew John at school but now has been surpassed by him in adult life and career. The two have remained friends, but each is having an affair with the other’s wife. These complications only emerge as the burglar subtly reveals to his captors one by one that he knows all about them. Mr Sloan communicates a boundless energy at all times on stage. In the midst of the mayhem with gunshots going off and bodies falling over, he also manages to produce some effective character acting to counterpoint the comedy. There was a particularly well observed poignancy to his playing as he considered stealing half a million Euro from the safe of his, now former, best friend John.

Esther Dooley as Trevor’s wife gave a career best performance in my opinion, evincing moments of pathos, comedy and genuine emotion with poise, grace and an indubitable elan. Ms Dooley has a pleasing stage presence, all the more so because she has grown over the years from a talented ingénue into an assured and capable actress. Sometimes her voice is a little weak and I was not sure how she’d handle the challenges of playing alongside four actors whose playing definitely tends towards loudness. But she dovetailed neatly with each of them. Her confidence and assurance were a very important factor in the overall success of the present production. Even when her character is discovered to be having an affair, the audience never quite loses sympathy with her. At that point, they’d have followed her anywhere. Now that’s what I call theatre magic. This almost spiritual quality in an actress is a subtle and rare gift. At all times Ms Dooley appears completely at home on stage, without a trace of nerves or strain.

Philomena Breslin as John’s wife Barbara rejoiced in the comic opportunities offered by the role of a woman more than a little keen to steal some of her husbands assets. Clearly enjoying herself at every turn, Ms Breslin switched neatly from histrionics to romance then back to histrionics again as the part demanded. She was quintessentially adroit in her use of the stage, perhaps because of her training as a classical singer. Her best acting came in her interactions with Mr Berney. There was a lovely quietness as she realised the burglar knew everything about her own dishonesty. This was really fine acting. Worth the price of admission. The playing here was near perfect. Ms Breslin has a diva like authority (because she is a diva) and can command the audience’s attention, but she is ever generous to her fellow players.

Philomena Breslin tries to persuade the burglar to see things her way.

Bernard Berney (who is the uncle of this reviewer) played the burglar and raised the stakes right from his entrance. His sly attempts to persuade each of his captors in turn to let him go, instantly engaged the audience imagination and brought us heart and soul into the world we were viewing. The problem with British comedy is that, even at its best, it can be a bit anodyne, flat, wordy, joyless and remote. Mr Berney brought the unlikely “burglar captive in the drawing room” scenario alive. His playing off each of his fellow actors had a relaxed quality that was tremendously effective. He was not fazed by the lack of jokes in the script. He brought humour from every situation and every encounter. And he made us believe it was all happening here in Ireland right now. His performance was the key to the success of the First Act.

Theft is not a conventional farce. It is a British comedy written by a television scriptwriter called Eric Chappell. Bernard Berney himself had made the decision to move the scene to Ireland. In so doing he added some relevant contemporary references to the original script.

Making these sorts of changes to a play can be very risky. I groaned when my spies informed me the play was being rewritten. Plotlines can be disrupted, continuity adversely affected and so on. But the changes added by Mr Berney worked to a tee. When the burglar makes an impassioned speech about the banking and political corruption in Irish society, instead of standing out like a sore thumb, it produces an instant burst of applause from the audience. Mr Berney’s script changes tapped into the zeitgeist of the moment. He spoke for so many of us who believe we have seen our country sold down the river for a mass of pottage.

And it works too as drama. It works as part of this play. It works as a moment of pure theatre. Mr Berney’s acting at this stage remained nicely controlled. He did not let his character become self indulgently preachy. He succeeded in saying in succinct terms what has for too long been unsayable in this country.

He had not only written these script additions, he acted them as well. It was his finest hour.

The funniest line written by the original scriptwriter Mr Chappell, came when the burglar faced the horror of being guarded alone by an inebriated housewife. The burglar said: “You can’t leave me with her. If a drunk driving a motor car is as dangerous as a man with a loaded gun, how dangerous is a drunk with a loaded gun?”

I should have mentioned earlier, that the play bears the hand of two directors. Initially Bernard Berney helmed the production and his layered polished workmanship shows throughout. The Berney influence is particularly evident in the confident interplaying between Fergal Sloane and Vivian Clarke. Later Mischa Fekete came on board to direct while Mr Berney was away on business. Mr Fekete has a certain creative zest, and this too bubbles to the surface here and there. At various points I was intrigued trying to figure out which director to praise and which one to blame. Neither director accepted a director’s credit on the programme, a fact which caused me some mild irritation. I suppose I could have asked them who was responsible for what if I really wanted to know badly enough.

There were some elements of the production that could have been improved.

The opening scene would have benefited from a nice loud and clear exclamation of “We’ve been burgled.”

The rather splendid set (designed, built and decorated by Mr Fekete, Levi Doyle, Ger Doyle, Sean Crowe, Paudge Byrne, Joe Dooley, John Berney, Letitia Hanratty and Nessa Dunlea), this sumptuous set I say, just wasn’t messed up enough. It didn’t look burgled. It took me about five minutes to realise a burglary had taken place.

When the gun, so prodigiously brandished by Mr Clarke, was finally fired, we needed good loud Magnum 44 bangs. Instead we got something a little too discrete like James Bond assassining somebody in between Martinis, phut phut phut. Nay, nay and thrice nay. Bang, bang, bang! You've got to sass it.

Is assassining a word?

Don't bother me with trifles.

The second half of the play never entirely recovered the pace and verve of the first half. Always dangerous to have an intermission in a comedy. It's hard enough to get people laughing. Risky business telling em to stop for fifteen minutes and restart later. I predict the future of theatre comedy will not have intermissions but a straight run through like a feature film.

And a reprise (sort of valedictory) scene after the final curtain, where we saw the main plot points mimed by the actors to the tune of The Pink Panther, well it was a brave stab but a bit long and I don’t think it could ever have worked, and frankly old beans it shouldn’t have been there.

I throw in these few mild criticisms because I’d hate Kilcullen Drama Group to think I like everything they do. I recognise that the actors had a lot on their plate having to soldier through a production without me in the cast. In truth they rose to the challenge admirably.

The production of Theft was of course a massive logistical operation. Back stage crew Joe O’Connor, Herbert Sheehan, and Ger Kelly were slick about their business.

Lighting and sound from Frank Mitchell were well judged and timed to precision.

The professional veneer over the whole production was upheld by a continuity group consisting of Joan Clarke, Eilish Phillips and Catriona Poufong. There was a sublime moment on Gala night when Bernard Berney loudly demanded “Give me a prompt Joan,” from Joan Clarke, who equally loudly responded "I ****ing gave you one."

The front of house team included Madge Clarke, Nuala Egan, Nessa Dunlea, Maurice O’Mahoney and Eithne Dempsey. Refreshments came courtesy of the unfailingly cheerful Lucy Mackey and Teresa Meaney. I thought Teresa stinted on the cup of tea she gave me but she seemed to treat everyone else alright.

Checking tickets at the entry to the auditorium were none others than Sean Crowe and Ger Kelly. The problem for me in the choice of these two gentlemen for this particular job, is that neither is capable of allowing me to enter any building, or indeed room, without delivering a good ten minute slagging first. Their motivation for this behaviour may have something to do with the fact that in the dim and distant past, I got their names wrong in an article for the Leinster Leader, a newspaper from which I’ve since been fired, for reasons, I might add, other than getting Ger and Sean’s names wrong. In any case when I saw the pair of them waiting at the door I made an executive decision to enter by another route. I went backstage through the actors’ entrance and from there found my way into the auditorium via the stage. Saint Joseph would have been proud.

Esther Dooley, Bernard Berney and Vivian Clarke at the climax of Theft.

Theft is continuing at Kilcullen Theatre this week on Tuesday 8th, Thursday 10th, Friday 11th, and Saturday 12th December. Tickets available from Berneys Pharmacy or by phoning (045) 481497.