A sign on the way into the theatre warns that the production contains “hay, peat and grass”. It should probably also warn that this tale of the birds and the bees contains uncontrolled blarney, overwrought symbolism and emotional bogginess.
American playwright John Patrick Shanley is best known for Doubt and the movie Moonstruck. He must have been moonstruck when he knocked off this odd, wafer-thin and manipulatively heartwarming romantic comedy about Rosemary Muldoon (Deirdre O’Kane) and Anthony Reilly (Owen McDonnell), raised side by side on neighbouring farms in rural Ireland. Rosemary has supposedly held a grudge against Anthony since he knocked her over 30 years ago, when she was six. It was poetic justice that it happened to be on a strip of land bought by her father from Anthony’s dad that prevents the Reillys from accessing their farm directly. Or indeed ever selling it.
Now, with the older generation either dead or about to cop it, middle-aged Rosemary and Anthony are facing a bleak future, living side by side but never communicating their unspoken desires. At least they will if Anthony actually gets to inherit the family farm from his dad, who thinks he takes too much after his maternal grandfather who once put his own dog on trial for slander.
In fact, the real problem here is that Shanley’s vision of Ireland is filtered through a soggy, rain-swept haze of theatrical cliches; throwing in a few references to the expired Celtic Tiger doesn’t make events any more contemporary or believable.
All drama is stifled by Anthony and Rosemary’s doomy inertia, as is the script, until the final scene. The first two-thirds is mere exposition, and while the play suddenly discovers impetus, and a slew of good one-liners, in the last 20 minutes, it’s far too late for it to earn its characters the happy ending that Shanley bestows on them.
• At Ustinov, Bath, until 16 May. Box office: 01225 448844.
