Meredith
Gate Theatre
★★★☆☆
In an era defined by intergenerational inequality, the protagonist of Erica Murray’s new play is sitting at the top of the heap.
Meredith, which is at the Gate as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, opens with the 83-year-old title character convalescing at her Co Meath home after a hip operation. The abundant plants in her orangery point to a world of carefree affluence. Meredith can also count on the attentive companionship of Abi, her full-time live-in carer.
Meredith is busy making trouble for herself as she delves into the world of online dating. Having matched with a French photographer, she eagerly awaits his promised visit from Antibes. The liaison will, she explains to a faintly scandalised Abi, have no bearing on her relationship with an existing local lover.
Dearbhla Molloy carries the role with an air of winsome insouciance, underlaid by subtle charisma. Despite never leaving her rattan chair, she remains the centre of attention for much of Annabelle Comyn’s brisk 90-minute staging.
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As Abi, Tishé Fatunbi is, on the face of it, all sweetness and light, but she also brings out the anxieties of a character whose relatively cushy job depends on being permanently agreeable.
Meredith’s amorous reveries are interrupted by the arrival of her daughter, Noelle, who is ticked off that her mother has hired Abi without consulting her. That irritation is really driven by a bundle of deeper frustrations that gradually reveal themselves. In Fiona Bell’s high-strung performance, Noelle’s determination to be the pragmatic voice of reason serves to mask her own neurosis.
By contrast, her 21-year-old son, Lorcan, has inherited his grandmother’s easy-going fecklessness (which she indulges with regular gifts of cash). A talented musician, albeit one who has traded his clarinet for a laptop, he is also up to no good.
Along with Meredith’s ill-advised online flirtations, that malfeasance drives much of the plot, which steers the family towards calamity rather than disaster.
As Lorcan, Cal O’Driscoll blends modest charm with the kind of privileged self-assurance that allows him, whenever challenged, to rebuke his mother for working for “an evil tech giant”. His flirtatious interactions with Abi also capture the uncertain dynamics of a youthful situationship, which is paralleled by Meredith’s occasional romance with Terry, the affable, cash-strapped squire of a neighbouring big house. Niall Buggy has fun sending up stereotypes in the latter part.
It all adds up to a plausible, mildly comic study of familial dysfunction and self-delusion within the socioeconomic elite (who don’t feature much in contemporary Irish drama). Abi also supplies an understated counterpoint that highlights the everyday effects of the housing crisis and graduate underemployment.
But the dramatic temperature often feels as if it could be dialled up a notch. Notwithstanding the crises confronted by the characters, the stakes never seem particularly high. The story also loses momentum towards the end as Meredith and Noelle become fixated with a series of absent, thinly sketched figures.
Meredith is at the Gate, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Sunday, November 1st
