The East Pier

Abbey Theatre, Dublin

WALK INTO the Abbey Theatre for The East Pier,the second of the two Paul Mercier shows in rep, and you're no longer there. You've stepped into one of those dampish seaside hotels, its faded charm somewhat corroded by the salty atmosphere. Seagulls screech and a sonorous ship's horn moans. You can just about feel the sticky, beer- stained carpet under your feet.

From the intense realism of Anthony Lamble’s set, it could have been a site-specific piece.

Enter Jean (Andrea Irvine) and Kevin (Don Wycherley), both successful executives with their own businesses and accompanying hectic lives.

The hotel carpet upon which they pace up and down as they rehash their past finds an echo in Kevin’s former life as Mr Underlay – back when they were a couple, back when the events they have such trouble remembering properly wedged them apart.

As Jean giggles nervously and smiles, and Kevin wanders ill-at-ease around the stacked chairs, they stammer, deny and confirm memories that piece together the back story that brings them to this deserted hotel lounge at exactly this moment.

“You didn’t come here to remember, you came here wanting to forget,” Jean accuses. But what these two people want, why they agreed to meet and, sadly, why we are voyeuristically watching them never becomes truly clear, either dramaturgically or emotionally.

Particularly in contrast to the painstaking portrayal of their surroundings, the characters Jean and Kevin feel much less real.

These former sweethearts with their selective memories patch together a pastiche of their failed romance and miserable lives for the audience.

But a lack of depth and intention in the text makes it very hard for Irvine and Wycherley – two of Ireland’s finest actors – to make them come alive.

The almost breathless tempo of the first proceedings gives them little room to expand into their roles, and there is little enough real concrete revelation about their inner lives to make any present-day anguish believable.

The play feels very much like an episode of a longer work that could develop a sense of profound emotional tragedy and failure despite outward material success. There is a strong sense that these excellent actors are struggling to breathe life and urgency into unborn characters. Given Paul Mercier’s comparably fine record as a writer and director, this is truly regrettable.