DenouementLyric Theatre, Belfast\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you really have to finish that now?\u201d a woman asks her husband, who is working at a typewriter too obsessively to take notice. It\u2019s bad enough that Liam, a writer frustrated after several setbacks, is choosing to spend their 29th wedding anniversary ignoring her in order to finish a long-gestating memoir.<\/p>\n
Within the apocalypse of Denouement, John Morton<\/a>\u2019s dark comedy for the Lyric Theatre<\/a>, where heavy artillery roars overhead and surrounding roads fill with smoke, there appear to be more pressing concerns than a book project.<\/p>\n At first glance this long-married couple living in rural Northern Ireland during a dystopian future may seem uneventful in their middle age. Against shelves of monitors displaying radiation levels and security schematics, they float around their cottage in cardigans, listening to country music.<\/p>\n But when Liam (played by Patrick O\u2019Kane<\/a>) investigates a van exploded outside their door, and returns with a salvaged brick of cocaine, they no longer seem so quiet. \u201cYabba dabba doo! We\u2019ll finish it good!\u201d he says, taking a bump. \u201cIs there any heroin?\u201d Edel (Anna Healy<\/a>) asks, succumbing to recreational drugs while waiting for the world to end.<\/p>\n Drugs and violence won\u2019t surprise those who enjoyed the excesses of Morton\u2019s previous plays The Roaring Banshees, from 2019, and The Hellfire Squad, from 2016. Denouement is closer to Taboo, also from 2016, which is another of the playwright\u2019s dramas about confinement, written in far subtler strokes.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Patrick O\u2019Kane on Denouement: \u2018It\u2019s a play about renewal in the face of an apocalypse\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n During Edel and Liam\u2019s comedown, their differing priorities with the time they have left becomes apparent. She notices an outage in the United States and anticipates a wave of destruction sweeping the world: \u201cI\u2019ve got to get hold of the kids!\u201d Liam still has other concerns. \u201cI\u2019ve got to get his finished!\u201d he says, tapping at his typewriter.<\/p>\n As Edel drifts between her unresponsive husband and one-sided phone conversations with friends, Morton\u2019s play seems almost a riff on Samuel Beckett\u2019s absurdist classic Happy Days, which buries a woman in sand to converse with herself. (Edel even briefly raises a parasol above her head, in re-creation of that play\u2019s iconic image.)<\/p>\n Unlike in Happy Days, the husband of the play talks back quite a bit. In debating whether to use their remaining time to look at the past (\u201cI need a finished document. Proof in my hand that I lived\u201d) or to address current problems in their marriage (\u201cI\u2019m wondering if there\u2019s anything we can still do to fix this,\u201d Edel says), their arguing is curiously one-note. What exactly is the couple\u2019s contrast?<\/p>\n Morton\u2019s script isn\u2019t to be blamed. In Jimmy Fay\u2019s production, the reluctances within the couple\u2019s marriage seem readily accepted. As we see Liam easily dodge accountability yet again, the opportunity feels missed for a far more intriguingly selfish creature, backed into corners and capable of artfully squirming his way out.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a wedding anniversary without some success. \u201cI was always wondering if you noticed how much he was flirting with me,\u201d Edel says, resorting to bringing up a past flame. She has her husband\u2019s attention at last.<\/p>\n Denouement is at the Lyric Theatre<\/a>, as part of Belfast International Arts Festival<\/a>, until Saturday, November 15th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DenouementLyric Theatre, Belfast\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 \u201cDo you really have to finish that now?\u201d a woman asks her husband, who is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[93148,92042,18,19,17,93149,93150,93147,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-160374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-anna-healy","9":"tag-belfast-international-arts-festival","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-john-morton","14":"tag-lyric-theatre","15":"tag-patrick-o-kane","16":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}