Wreckquiem
Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick
★★★☆☆
At one point in Mike Finn’s new play someone comes up with an inspired solution to embittering, age-old divisions. A group of passionate music-lovers gathered at Dessie’s Discs, a record shop in Limerick, compare different fandoms: the near-uncontrollable cries of Beatlemania; the howling swoons over Take That; the shrieks of admiration that greet Harry Styles. The shrewd focus is on what they all have in common, bridging the gap between dad rocker and Gen Z: “It’s the same scream.”
Whether it’s Abba (categorised under Overrated, someone decides) or Dionne Warwick (“Finally, some taste!”), music can seemingly allow us to channel ourselves. For Finn, it’s almost as if there’s no time for infighting.
Behind the record shop – a bright haven designed by Emma Fisher, with wooden floors, nicely lit display cabinets and wall art – a wrecking ball looms.
In a city ceded to sprawling development, a new shopping centre and luxury accommodation complex is trying to squeeze out Dessie, a broke and single man in his 50s, living out of his second-hand record store and, in Pat Shortt’s adroit performance, well capable of an audience-pleasing expletive – “There’s a Relaxing Shite section. You can find everything from whale noises to Enya.”
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What follows is a thesis on the importance of music, woven by Dessie’s regular customers: Paulie, a fortysomething (Patrick Ryan) living with his mother, and possessing a fan’s encyclopedic knowledge of release dates, chart positions and Grammy wins; Maeve (Joan Sheehy), an older collector, going through an uncertain life transition; and Chantelle (Sade Malone), a teenager skiving off school, and committing instead to saving the shop.
Finn’s references are old-school melodrama. There’s an all-important unopened letter that’s yet to get into the hands of its intended recipient. A possible acquisition of the shop – a shady deal proposed by Fintan (Mark O’Regan), a former musician who has sold his soul for a suit, and is now a slimy site manager – threatens to put Dessie’s life in flux.
Those methods of suspense aside, the play often ambles without consequence, as if casually exploring its contents. (Sorry, just browsing!) Its characters often gather in the shop and exchange memories of their lives and marriages, in what resembles random elicitations of ideas. Andrew Flynn, directing this Pigtown production, seizes it as something cosily reassuring: a feelgood comedy.
More compelling is the effect of music, and how it seems to stir its listeners. In homage to Dancing at Lughnasa, one touching scene allows the shop’s visitors to become arrested by a recording of the late Dolores O’Riordan, of The Cranberries, singing Dreams, before the dismal clangour of a jackhammer pulls them – and the audience – out of its spell.
That is certainly one way of depicting art as a portal for human transformation, especially amid bleak predictions of gentrification and a cultural ghost town. At one point Chantelle makes a striking defence, as the vinyl covers hanging on the walls suddenly take on the radiance of stained glass under Zia Bergin-Holly’s eloquent lighting: “It’s not just a building. It’s a cathedral.”
Wreckquiem is at Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick, until Saturday, July 5th
