The question of who will win an acting trophy recurs in Enda Walsh’s intricate play, as an emigrant Irish father and his two sons obsessively enact a performance in their squalid London flat. Their daily competition is given additional comic resonance in Landmark Productions’ new staging, which casts three members of the Gleeson family – Brendan and his sons Domhnall and Brian – as the abusive patriarch Dinny and his sons, Blake and Sean.
From the moment Dinny jumps out of his wheelchair to begin the daily ritual of performance, it is clear that nothing is as it seems in these claustrophobic rooms on the top floor of a tower block. In Sean Foley’s exuberant production, a soundtrack of mawkish ballads sets the tone for a parodic version of Irish exile, as we discover that Dinny’s own “farewell to the green hills of Erin” was precipitated by a gruesome murder.
What unfolds is an elaborate farce based on supposed memories of their native Cork, performed and directed by Dinny, with Blake and Sean in multiple roles they know inside-out. Evoking bizarre deaths by poisoned chicken, a speedboat and a flying dead horse, it involves frantic costume changes, coffins and wigs, with Blake playing a number of roles in drag.
As it proceeds, a subtext emerges between the brothers, who are effectively imprisoned in the flat, intimidated by their father. More importantly, they are trapped by Dinny’s version of the past. His story, constantly re-enacted, seems to hold them all captive. Because he controls the narrative, he controls them. He even attempts to arrest the passage of time, and almost succeeds – until the intrusion of the outside world in the form of Hayley (Leona Allen), the checkout girl from the local supermarket.
Seeing The Walworth Farce again, almost eight years after its premiere, it is clear that this was a major artistic breakthrough for Walsh. Its themes of physically and emotionally trapped characters, compelled to act out narratives in an endless loop, have recurred in subsequent plays: in the macabre scenes of The New Electric Ballroom, the Homeric riff Penelope and the existential conundrums of last year’s Ballyturk.
Here Walsh’s tightly structured script packs in references to Synge, Beckett, Tom Murphy and Ionesco, as well as Hamlet, yet he forges his own brilliantly original dramatic vision. Foley’s direction gives us the anarchic aspect of this, but misses its dark, unfathomable flipside. In the Gleesons’ performances, the comedy is broad and the timing wild and loose, but the absence of a sense of genuine danger between father and sons results in a loss of impact. There are glimpses of pain in Domhnall Gleeson’s performance, but overall the dynamic between the trio conveys riotous humour: infectious, certainly, but robbing the violent ending of its power to disturb.
• Until 8 February. Box office: 0844 847 2455. Venue: Olympia, Dublin.
