Lacking in passion

`There's no fool like an old fool . . . youth is youth." T.C. Murray's old Abbey chestnut sets these two crusty adages on an arresting collision course. Farmer Owen Keegan audaciously tries to turn the clock back by taking a young bride, Nance, while his daughter Ellen simmers with scorn and rage and his son pulses with forbidden passion for his new step-mother. Murray owes something to Synge and Othello; in turn he feeds Eugene O'Neill and, maybe, Martin McDonagh. It's a quare name, but great stuff and it's crying out for a bravura production to push the text towards its full sexual and tragic potential.

As it is, in this version directed by Paul Burke, the poetry is muted, and the passion is subdued. The contemporary naturalism sits uneasily with the rhetoric of the words and, in place of the vigour of seething emotions, there is a wan and inadequate physicality, underscored by a minimal setting and flat lighting.

There is fine acting, from Kevin Forsyth who gives an authoritative, if underplayed, rendering of the father, and, in a sustained and energetic performance, Bernie Sampson as the unhappy and vituperative Ellen. But the sexual chemistry that is meant to entrap Michael (Anthony Fox) and Nance (Chrissy Griffin) is notably lacking. They work intelligently to rediscover the psychology of the text, but instead of soaring with Murray's lyric hyperbole they trip over the weight of words, ultimately more like snogging teens than "`straws drawn into a whirlwind".

The Sionnach Theatre Company's production continues at The New Theatre, Temple Bar until March 27th. Booking at 01-6703361.