With Freedom Of The City, Brian Friel's take on Bloody Sunday, up on the Abbey mainstage, the festival of his work continues in the smaller 'downstairs' space with this rarely revisited 1977 play, which delves more obliquely into the devastating effects of militarism.
Here, Friel tackles the dynamics of the close-knit, disturbed family of an Irish Army officer, honoured for his heroism among the UN peace-keeping forces in the Middle East, having saved nine wounded comrades while under fire in the desert.
Once again, Friel sets the play in his generic, remote Donegal townland of Ballybeg - and indeed the hinterlands of memory, prised open by the rather harsh device of a Pirandello-style director/narrator character. For the umpteenth time, 'Sir' steers the family through the psychodrama of an awful, fateful day, and despite strenuous objections from the characters, every thing is replayed according to the 'script'.
For years, Commandant Frank Butler nursed his sick wife, the mother of his children, until her death, and he married young Anna on the rebound, a woman not much older than his three daughters. Yet during his long absence on duty, Anna has had an affair with his wayward, tormented son, a factor which, unbeknownst to Butler and his daughters, makes him and his radiant young 'mascot' something of a laughing-stock.
Director Jason Byrne brings his usual blunt, rapid style to the production, rather rattling through the more lyrical passages, and relying on sudden, vicious outbursts to punch home the revelations and underlying tension, yet delivering some interesting stage images.
It is a flawed but deeply edgy piece, with strong forshadowings of Dancing At Lughnasa in the trio of daughters, and some strong performances from Cathy Belton as Helen, the eldest, Charlie Bonner as the son, and the understated and curiously sympathetic Clive Geraghty as the commandant.
In its traumatised equation of the profession of war, and the repression of sexuality and memory, Friel here touches on big themes which he doesn't fully tease out, but there is unsettling profundity in his needling concerns.
