Dion Boucicault's stage-Irishry and mastery of spectacle brought him fame in the 19th century, but can be a tricky proposition today. With its noble Irish rebels and gormless peasants being chased by redcoats through the Wicklow hills, this melodrama from 1865 seems to require a tongue-in-cheek approach. How else to deliver a line such as: "My own land! Bless every blade of grass upon your green cheeks!"?
Director Mikel Murfi approaches this with a nod and a wink, delivering a family-friendly show with characters played like children let loose with a dressing-up box. The cast of 15 hurtles through the opening scenes, moving bits of scenery, bouncing on trampolines and sliding down hills. But the plot's elaborate convolutions – involving a rebel on the run after the 1798 Rising, love triangles, mistaken identity and betrayal – need time to take their course; the busyness of the staging runs out of steam before the two and a half hours of eloquent declamation get their due.
The most successful scenes are when Boucicault's lyricism is allowed to speak for itself, underscored delicately by Conor Linehan's live piano. As Shaun the Post, Aaron Monaghan strikes a perfect balance between irony and passion: his threatened execution is genuinely poignant, matched by the sincerity of Mary Murray as his beloved, Arrah Meelish.
Other performances adopt one note – of shouting exaggeration – and stick to it, so that the courtroom scene becomes a trial for the audience as much as the defendant. Yet caricature is only part of the point: by portraying soldiers who are merely doing their duty and a prison guard sympathising with his equally understanding prisoner, the play offers a tolerant recognition that decent individuals get caught up in larger forces over which they have no control.
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