A pub, a wake, drink, talk, truth, brawls, recriminations, false promises, curtain. First produced in 2000, Jimmy Murphy's play is so archetypically Irish, it almost seems a pastiche - which is what makes Arambe Theatre Company's new twist so clever. The actors in this production are all black: four are immigrants from Nigeria, while Yare Jegbefume, playing the pivotal role of Jap Kavanagh, is Dublin-born.
Initially, it is disorienting and funny to hear these actors speak Murphy's Irish argot, but things quickly become more complex. Even if the characters are overly obvious types (the entrepreneur, the bitter dreamer, the alcoholic), the play is so well-plotted that we are drawn into a plausible story of disillusioned Irishmen abroad.
The actors' ethnicity, however, continually intrudes, via strong accents, a laconic yet highly physicalised playing style and the inescapable fact of their skin colour. Other stories are therefore suggested: these could be African migrants to London, living the same disappointment as Murphy's sad Irishmen.
The final layer is the most politically charged: we cannot forget that these are Africans performing an Irish story back to Irish audiences, and showing it off to be more than a little solipsistic and self-pitying. All these possibilities converge in a brilliant moment at the end of the first act, when the inevitable sing-song starts, but with a Nigerian rather than Irish tune: the stage explodes with the performers' joyous energy.
Director Bisi Adigun and his actors are less comfortable navigating the dramatic twists of the second half, and the tone shifts uncomfortably to melodrama. Still, this is a fascinating use of theatre to explore Ireland's changing cultural realities.
· Until Saturday. Box office: (353) 1 679 5720.
