While David Ireland’s award-winning plays have been widely produced in Scotland and his native Belfast, this production by Rough Magic theatre company is his first to be staged in Dublin. The scene is a government building in Northern Ireland, where the work of a truth and reconciliation commission is about to start. Sandra (Abigail McGibbon) is a Unionist politician, and the Protestant representative on the commission. Her day is ruined by the arrival of her long-absent sister Teeni (Stacey Gregg), who crashes in, barely avoiding arrest for shouting racist abuse at the black South African chairwoman.
Holed up in a boiler room while the public events unfold, the sisters confront each other after an 11-year silence. Teeni fumes about the compromises and evasions that the reconciliation process involves. Sandra reveals her private struggles and harrowing dreams. They are daughters of a murdered Ulster Defence Association man, and their memories hang between them, incompatible and divisive. Religion and alcohol play a central role in their lives, with each having a comically peculiar approach to AA.
The premise may be a bit contrived, but this insightful playwright avoids a neat emotional resolution. He exposes the impact of decades of violence and hatred and leaves his characters suspended. Under Sophie Motley’s taut direction, their dialogue is a series of bouts.
As they circle each other, they are caught in a psychological maze suggested by the imposing interlocking pipes of Sarah Bacon’s set design. The writing attempts to develop weighty personal and political themes over 70 minutes, and sometimes strains to contain the forces it has unleashed.
Teeni, played with demonic energy by Gregg, is an embodiment of damage. Her racist and sectarian rants push the limits of a stage performance without provoking protests. Nervous laughter seems an uncomfortable audience response to her bigotry. Rapt silence descends, in recognition of a painful encounter in which some truths are observed, with little reconciliation.
• Until 28 February. Box office: 00 353 1-881 9613. Venue: Project arts centre, Dublin.
