The Shaughraun Review - April 2012

To have taken the 19^th century melodramatic romantic comedy The Shaughraun by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault from a traditional, usually heavily staged setting and perform it outdoors in Crediton Town Square was a brave feat, requiring vision and verve from Peter Hamilton and Crediton Arts Centre last summer.  The gamble of offering Crediton a piece of non-Shakespearean open-air theatre paid off and the show was so well received the suggestion of an indoor revival this spring was warmly welcomed both by the home crowd and further afield.

Coming into the intimate snug-in-pub welcome of a packed Crediton Arts Centre on Saturday 31^st March the audience was greeted by live Irish folk music, lifting and transporting the spirits to another place, Suil-a-Beg, County Sligo on the West of Coast of Ireland, and another time, 1858, when the ownership and autonomy of Ireland was being fought over.

Despite the heady, heavy political backdrop the piece is comedic and the humour was well played out. Tom Blaen performed a chortle-inducing foppish English officer Captain Mollineaux, in love with the witty Irish gentlewoman Claire Ffolliott (Katherine Marsland) but duty bound to follow his orders to capture her brother, escaped convict Robert Ffolliott (Stu Wight), affianced to her friend Arte O’Neal (Petrina Truman). Truman carries the refinement and status of Arte well and remains frostily aloft to the lascivious advances of Cory Kinchela (Pat Laver) to make her his wife and possession having crippled her financially by the poor management of her lands and estates.  Fortunately for Arte and Robert, the loyal and inventive poacher-cum-vagabond ‘shaughran’ Conn O’Kelly (Tim Hole) is determined to foil the double-crossing of Corry and sidekick Harvey Duff (Eddie Holden) to help his friend Robert.

Hole’s portrayal of Conn was the driving force of the performance, his mesmerizingly energetic story telling lighting up the stage, infectiously invigorating his fellow cast members with the optimism to defeat Kinchela and Duff whatever the cost…

Hole was well supported by his love Moya Dolan (Victoria Crossly), gentle and yet full of joyful mischief, the peaceable Father Dolan (Geoff Fox) and emotional Mrs O’Kelly (Hilary Hamilton).  The Chorus did an entertaining job of keeping the audience abreast of where they were as the adventure capered around the landscape of Suil-a-Beg.

The show toured three other venues (Beer, Moretonhampstead and Newton Abbot) before coming home to Crediton Arts Centre.

Wasted by Kate Tempest

As the lights came up the woman next to me hurriedly wiped away her tears.  Her boyfriend hadn’t looked thrilled about being here when they first arrived; she had suggested he wait in the bar during the show but he refused.  He wanted to do this with her, for her.  He was confused by her tears, squeezed her hand and led her as quickly as he could out of the auditorium, away from the cause of her distress.

He reminded me of Ted.  I wondered if she felt like Charlotte.

An initial burst of projected images wordlessly introduced the three characters to us – Charlotte the classroom teacher aching to travel; Ted the office worker, tied, tired and tangled by the endless repetition of colourless days; Danny the arty drop out mate, with low level addictions to a life lived high as opposed to a powder-and-pill-free world that under delivers against what he believes he could be. 

The characters themselves then came out, sheepishly, blinking into the bright lights on the stage, a more crumpled, less refined version of the selves we had seen moments before on the big screen; smaller, less controlled.  They said nothing for a while.  Looked at one another, at us, went to speak, lost their nerve.  Then exploded into rhythmic dialogue, directly, with the audience. 

The piece continued energetically for an hour, a mix of monologues delivered to their friend Tony, and scenes from the 24-hour period as they commemorated the 10th anniversary of his death at 15 by getting wasted, just like they used to.

The audience thus becomes Tony, who in turn becomes an imaginary ‘other’, a confessor and totem for a period in time when the concept of tribe, of belonging, of meaning, was unquestioned and self-confidence inevitable.  Each character takes this moment to measure up their disappointment in the life lived and to contemplate how they might change, to get back on track to their ‘true selves’.

Finding definition and meaning in existence is a fundamental question that we all grapple with, ignore, medicate against and quest to achieve at different moments in our lives.  We have grown up surrounded by the dialogue of choice – political and commercial propaganda tells us anything, everything is possible.  Wasted touches upon the consequences and challenges of such an environment as its’ inhabitants come of age and asks how, given this excess of choice, we intend to live.