The first play in the Bell table Arts Centre's Unfringed 2001 festival is Gift, commissioned from Ursula Rani Sarma - and it start-kicks the proceedings with a theatrical vengeance.
The macabre has a special place in my affections and here I felt the authentic touch of cold, bony fingers gripping my heart.
A young priest returns from Africa to say Mass for his dead father and, in a lonely room, remembers his youth. Father was an undertaker who kept bodies in the cellar below, and took an odd view of his job and customers. Upstairs his beloved wife, a former Cork Rose in the Tralee festival, now lies in a silent, catatonic state.
He speaks to her as to one of his corpses, sleepers only; and insists that his uncomprehending son do the same, and sing for her. The boy grows up in a state of suppressed terror, too delicate and sensitive for his father's approval.
When mother dies, the circumstances drive him towards the priesthood: his gift from God. His departure, from a father teetering on the edge of sadism, is bitter.
The writing has a vivid, original quality which shapes the characters and action.
Eamonn Hunt plays both the father and his surviving brother with authority, a rock-solid performance. Kevin O'Leary offers a remarkable realisation of the boy-priest, projecting his confusion and pain.
For some 80 minutes they match the brilliance of the script in a memorable production, directed with insider know-how by the author.