Pan Pan Theatre's weeklong international theatre symposium was adorned on Thursday night by a minimalist staging of Ridiculusmus's performance of their exploration of Northern Ireland reticence with an undertone of threat and failure.
I'm not sure that the word "adorned" is wholly compatible with the exercise: it would hardly pass in an end-of-term exposition of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
The two creators and performers - David Woods and Jon Hough - stand on a sixinch sod of supposedly Irish grass stuffed into a battered open three-foot-by-twofoot suitcase on the ground (scarcely visible in most people's sight lines on the unraised floor of the Samuel Beckett Theatre): Kevin (Woods) claims to have been born in Craigavon but is clearly of English fosterage and Hough provides most of the few Irish characters he meets in his efforts to find the room where, with his degree in conflict resolution, he believes he is to facilitate a cross-community exchange in the "hands across the barricades" programme he is running.
The words don't seem to matter as much as the rhythms and, at times, the vocal projection scarcely reaches beyond the toes of the performers, although the moods and attitudes are always clear.
Kevin is probably not very good at his job and is repetitively unsuccessful in his efforts to communicate with Hough's reluctant caretaker of the building where the meeting room may be, or with Hough's landlady, Sally Brady, in his Donegal digs or any of the other natives he comes across (having been asked to leave Derry altogether in an earlier phase of his programme.) The structuring of the story verges purposefully on the chaotic and the few stage effects that are attempted, such as the dripping of blood from the flies during an exquisitely appalling rendition of The Sally Garden, are technically inept.
But these seeming inadequacies appear to be part and parcel of the almost anti-theatrical purpose of the event. Yet that purpose communicates itself in a series of tiny understatements to give everything a frisson of threat and very serious uncertainty amid the frequent laughter.
It would be too much to claim that these clearly serious exponents of their art had invented a new theatrical language (their laughs derive largely from one of the oldest standbys in the vaudevillean tradition of mere recognition, just as mere mention of Corporation Place invariably earned great guffaws in the old Theatre Royal in Dublin). If Woods and Hough have created a new style of theatre, then it's closer to dishevelment (even in production values) than to what we think of as style. But they got their laughs with ease despite creating an air of deep unease in many of the audience.
And that was part of their intention too: this very serious comedy is a significant achievement by any standards. If those who missed the Thursday performance now want to see it, they'll have to contact Ridiculusmus on their web site at www.ridiculu.dircon.co.uk where information on how to hire them is set out.