Damian Gorman's new play is set in the dying days of one of the worst years of the Troubles, at a Belfast residential care facility where four male patients are "all in the same boat - the HMS Alkie".
Broaching alcoholism is a progressive move in what still is a booze- and denial-ridden culture, but Gorman's dramaturgical problem is that he layers on too many other topical issues and societal metaphors. The facility - oppressive, full of aggression - obviously stands for Northern Ireland, and Gorman is suggesting that the culture should come to terms with its anger and sadness just as these patients do. Fair point, though made via a bit too much psychobabble, and underlined rather indelicately mid-play when the patients' shared toilet backs up.
Also simmering are the wartime culture of suspicion (is one of the patients a government mole?), racism (the newest arrival is Nigerian), and domestic abuse (the cleaner's husband beats her up). And when a new, female psychiatrist appears on the scene with an unorthodox, touchy-feely approach, the course of what is to follow - resistance, reckoning, group bonding and acceptance - is all too predictable.
The female characters are not particularly well drawn: cleaner Agnes is a punching-bag cypher (though Abbie Spallen plays her terrifically well), and it is hard to tell whether Gorman is approving or satirising Doctor Marie's boundary-free tactics. The four central male characters, however, while somewhat schematic types (the cynic, the old softy, the damaged innocent, the sage Other), are well-drawn, and superbly acted by John Kazek, Gordon Fulton, James Doran, and Enrique Fonseca.
It is easy to imagine this material expanding into a television mini-series; theatre simply might not be Gorman's optimal form. Even so, director Carol Moore heroically pulls as much together as she can, including the striking surprise ending.
· Until February 11. Box office: 02890 381 081.
