Time Before Sleep

It opens with two, then four people who have come in from a rainstorm. The place is warm and dry, and is quite bare except for a single chair. After a little while, the two men and two women begin to speak to each other, in the formal, stilted way of polite conversation.

Not a lot is said. I've been in Venice; have you? Yes, once, for six days. I was there for less than five. Beautiful place. Desultory stuff, and it does not improve, but it is obvious that something more is intended. Who are these people, and what are they doing in this unlikely place?

Clues are distributed. Some poetic words are said about age and its acceptance. On a large white backdrop, blurred home movies are projected which seem to show children playing in a garden while old folk look on. One of the four asks the cliched question, if you had it all to do again, would you change anything?

In some scenes, the women are dressed in wedding gowns, and balletic movement is introduced. The movie-inserts become repetitive. At one point, a woman says: "I like talking about nothing; it's the only thing I know about." Consider that - pretentious nonsense or pregnant with meaning, depending on context. Not unlike the play, devised and produced by the Blue Raincoat Company.

Let's have a shot at interpreting it. The place is a kind of anteroom, and the quartet about to shuffle off their mortal coils; ships that don't quite pass in the night. These are their last meditations, formalised in speech and movement. The filmed scenes symbolise memory or the past. Etc.

It lasts for only 40 minutes, and I ran out of time in my quest for the truth. I liked the actors; John Carty, Ciaran McCauley, Fiona McGeown and Sandra O'Malley, and the sense of control inherent in Niall Henry's direction. But my failure to engage adequately with their work left me feeling somewhat patronised; an audience reaction I am sure they did not wish to invite.

Plays until Friday, November 6th (booking at 071-70431)