Conor McPherson’s modest, subtle 2013 play, already seen in London and New York, looks particularly persuasive on its Irish premiere. The events unfolding in a single room in a crumbling Dublin house are magnified by Europe’s refugee crisis and the squabble among governments as to who should take responsibility and give practical help.
Adrian Dunbar plays Tommy, a middle-aged man who has abandoned his family and is living in his widowed uncle Maurice’s (Frank Grimes) Dublin house in the kind of squalor that brings the threat of botulism. With a wad of cash under the floorboards, Tommy is clearly doing more than getting by financially, and he’s doing it with the help of Doc, a young homeless man with learning disabilities. Into the mix comes Aimee, rescued by Tommy from her violent boyfriend; she arrives trailing blood and trouble, but with the possibility for change, too.
This is a play that quietly celebrates the unassuming heroisms of everyday life and the corrosive pain of loneliness. There is a comic and heartbreaking moment that is worth the price of the ticket alone, when Tommy and Aimee cling to each other as if they are drowning, while dancing to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
This wonderfully unshowy revival is full of such tiny observations. Dunbar – shambling one moment and cocky the next – is terrific, offering all the contradictions of Tommy, who both evades and takes responsibility. There is great support from Laurence Kinlan as the wounded but cheerfully puppyish Doc, and Kate Stanley Brennan, who shows us Aimee’s external and internal bruises.
• At Lyric Belfast from 6 October until 31 October. Box office: 028-9038 1081.
