A woman in tatters lies prostrate in the dirt; a filthy man crouches over her. With a guttural howl, he grabs her in a half-nelson and hauls her standing. This is, we discover, an act of passionate love: the year is 1867, and the starving couple are trying to reach the north Irish coast to sail for America. Maevev is pregnant and exhausted, and her schoolteacher husband John uses what energy and wits he has left to coax her onwards.
All elements of Ransom Productions' staging come together to give this desperate scenario the weight of myth. Richard Dormer's writing, in English and Irish, is spare and poetic, and credibly describes the extreme mental state of the couple as they drift between anxious exchanges of information and flights of memory. Rachel O'Riordan's powerful staging urges the actors to use their bodies and voices in union, and to give themselves over completely to the situation. The precise designs (by Diego Pitarch, James Kennedy, and James Whiteside) create an iconic setting and mood.
Above all, Lalor Roddy and Pauline Goldsmith's performances are extraordinary. Their intensity and commitment compel the audience and bring us with them on a journey to the edge of human experience.
This individual situation depicts the catastrophe of a specific historical moment - the Irish Famine - and makes it feel part of a larger sweep of human history. It therefore feels like a considerable loss of nerve when, in the final minutes, Dormer introduces a third character, a priest (played by himself) who delivers a diatribe against the colonising forces. Ransom could have trusted the power of its storytelling and stagecraft more; we did not need this preachy coda.
· Until April 28. Box office: 02890 233 332. Then touring.
