Sparks by Pat Hynes

Scéal Eile are an interesting new theatre company based in a bookshop in Ennis, Co.Clare. Their current offering at the Teacher’s Club on Parnell Square, is ‘Sparks’ written and directed by artistic director Pat Hynes, designed by Eibhleann Ní Ghríofa and performed by Darren Killeen.

The original story was as short listed for the PJ O’Connor radio play awards in 2011 and the current production was adapted for the stage as a one man show and produced this year.

The story centres round ‘Gerry’, an electrician, whose grasp on reality is spiralling horribly out of control, as his ability to finish a refurb job on the local school on time. He is ineptly assisted by rookie ‘Dave’ and during the course of the piece we meet ‘Miss’, his old school teacher, ‘Jack’ his slovenly gaffer, and also another character, a Russian co-worker, with the dubious moniker of ‘Roubles’. It soon transpires that Gerry has been a bad boy and has been skimming off materials to do his own jobs on the side and now time is running out on his job at the school for local contractor, Jack. Jack has been alerted to Gerry’s activities and now it is payback time.

Ultimately in this play I kept wanting to know how Gerry had gotten into this mess in the first place and where he was going next, but the constraints of staging this as a one-man show are clear, as these elements of the story can’t really be addressed. Instead, Gerry seems to be caught in a nightmare loop of feverishly trying to complete work, while being interrupted by the various characters that drop in on him, or into his mind, during the course of the day. The play ends as it begins with Gerry, passed out on the floor, exhausted, then leaping back into action and repeatedly asking himself ‘Where will I start?, Where will I start?’. It turns out to be a rhetorical question.

With considerable presence onstage, Darren Killeen does an admirable job of playing all five characters in Hynes’ piece. In a sometimes dizzying whirlwind of characters he maintains Gerry’s bullish persona as a product of a cycle of casual mistreatment, first by the other children when he was at school and later by Jack. The nightmare unfolds in a delightfully dishevelled set, cleverly designed by Eibhleann Ní Ghríofa.

Review by A Devereux

Tickets are available here.

Theatre@36, Club na Muinteoiri/Teacher’s Club, 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin 1.

Sunday 26th Matinee Saturday 2pm Tickets €12/€10 concession, Matinee: €10/€8 Jan-Saturday 1st February, 8pm,