In a one-man show, a bare stage can be tricky. Generally you need a few token hollowed-out props, colourful little eye-grabbers to hang your illusion upon. To aid his performance Michael Bates has nothing but the clothes on his back and a chair so unremarkable that its lonely appearance actually serves to underline this stark absence of artifice, of frill. What he does have are Paul Kennedy’s ominous words- their uneasy humour and sombre poetry- and a songbook of accents and moods to play around with. What we get then is a type of hyper-animated reading; where an unhinged seanchaí paints oddities on the bare air, conjuring up an unnerving rabbit-hole descent. Which is not to undermine the drama in this non-dramatic piece; far from it. Down by The River is an exercise in old-school storytelling, the kind that draws you in through cadence and schizophrenic narration.
Gerry is worried that his marriage is on the rocks. Sitting idly at the bus depot, waiting for his shift to start, he ponders the implications of his wife’s recent enrolment in a self-actualisation class. When she brings home a friend- the sultry Jessica- things start to look up. Could the listlessness be lifting? Might this woman inspire a sort of sexual renaissance in Gerry’s stagnating relationship? From his big bag of voices Bates pulls free a disinterested wife, a threatening vixen-cum-faded belle, her ex-con ex-boyfriend (a sort of in-yer-face artist on the Dublin social scene), as well as a dotty mother-in-law, a colleague with a voice like a bus engine growling to life, and a mixum-gatherum of one-line side characters thrown in for good measure. These voices form a layered backdrop to Matt’s increasing paranoia, the gradual realisation that events have spiralled dangerously out of his control.
In many ways this play unfolds like a Kevin Barry short story: the slow burn of a narrator’s humorous colloquial musings giving way to something dark and odd, a type of lyrical grotesque. At the close of the tale, as Gerry speeds rabidly through the night in a borrowed car, one moment of casual cruelty will have terrible, irreparable consequences.
“When I looked up at the sky, the stars had disappeared…”
Venue: Bewley’s Cafe Theatre
Dates: October 16th- November 10th
Time: Mon-Sat at 1PM
Tickets: Low price Mondays €8, Tues-Thursday €10, Fri-Sat €12
Booking Info: 086-8784001/ www.bewleyscafetheatre.com
