It’s 1995, and Ireland’s impending divorce referendum is in the news. Stephen (Owen McDonnell), a journalist, has already separated from his wife, Marion, who has moved out of the former marital home taking their teenage daughter, Gerty, with her. The night before Gerty is due to visit Stephen for the first time in six months, he brings home Molly (Susan Stanley), a young reporter. But their coupling is soon to be rudely interrupted.
This is Richard Molloy’s first play and at times it shows, particularly in the painfully stuttering first scene, which is like a lame romcom. Later on, there are some sharp observations and a scattering of one-liners (mostly about foreplay and nuns), but essentially this is an Irish version of the old-fashioned kitchen-sink drama in which poor, stroppy Gerty gets caught in the crossfire of her toxic parents, and the improbably naive Molly is snared in the manipulative Stephen’s web of lies.
Perhaps in Ireland this may have a greater resonance, but there seems no particularly good reason why it’s set during the 1995 referendum. It doesn’t help that both Stephen and Marion behave improbably in the face of Gerty’s disappearance, or that Molly should be quite as naive as she appears. This woman is definitely not an investigative journalist. In the end, the whole thing descends into lots of shouting, as Stephen shows his true colours – never very well camouflaged in the first place.
The saving grace is a pair of very nice performances: Roxanna Nic Liam’s Gerty is a quietly convincing mix of teenage intransigence and little-girl- lost in the face of adult machinations, and Carrie Crowley is terrific as Marion, bravely refusing to soften her to make her more sympathetic. But the evening is never sufficiently surprising, funny or insightful to earn its place on this stage.
• Until 21 February. Box office: 020 7978 7040. Venue: Theatre 503, London.
