A love story shines through a mass of societal problems in Rosaleen McDonagh’s new play, the first to be commissioned from a member of the Traveller community by the Abbey theatre. While the bond between the central couple, John (John Connors) and Julia (Sorcha Fox), is put under immense pressure by the painful circumstances of their lives, their feelings for each other are never in doubt.
The opening scene of Jason Byrne’s production takes us inside the caravans of a halting site – purpose-built accommodation – where Julia is reluctantly living with John’s extended family. With her sister-in-law, the teenage Charlene (Hazel Clifford), about to sit an important school exam on the same day as her much-anticipated wedding, the conflicting pulls of family and the external, settled world are immediately established. The humour of the row between Charlene and her mother (Hilda Fay) gives way to a sombre tone, with McDonagh addressing intersecting issues of racist prejudice, social injustice, the housing crisis, violence, sexual abuse and alcoholism – enough for a series of plays.
Designer Joanna Parker’s set is a striking geometric grid, deftly evoking a way of life that is unstable and scattered. Caravan doors are put to various uses by the ensemble cast, including one used as a riot shield against police officers. Creating a sense of threat, Paul Keogan’s lighting design picks out the night lights of an inhospitable city, as the vulnerable Julia stands at the window of a hotel room, surrounded by beer cans.
Here, she is interrupted by a number of very sketchily drawn characters: a gay professional woman who patronises her, a Polish cleaner (both played by Nyree Yergainharsian) and a predatory hotel manager (Ruairí Heading). More successfully, two eloquent monologues help to anchor the amorphous narrative: first from Julia, separated from her children, then John, grappling with his sense of failure as a husband and a man.
“Traveller representation did not come from an authentic place,” McDonagh writes in a preface, referring to previous portrayals of Traveller characters in Irish theatre and literature. By contrast, her play has the ring of truthfulness: moving, unsentimental and, to echo the title of her newly published essays, unsettling.
Walls and Windows is available online until 11 September.
