In Light of Salt Rings They Drew – Written by Sadhbh Moriarty – Review by Frank L

Complex- Nov 6th and 7th – Strive Theatre Production

Sadhbh Moriarty follows her first play (“the Deepest Goldfish”) with “Salt Rings” which won this year’s Eamon Keane Full–length Play Award at the Listowel Writers’ week. She is in her very early twenties! She and her co-director are the driving forces behind Strive Theatre Group whose motto is that “theatre is not made to remain on the page”. True to their word they have brought a production of “Salt Rings” on a tour which included Wexford, Kilkenny, Meath, Galway, Cork and finished up with two nights in the Complex Live Arts Centre, a newish space in Little Mary Street, Dublin 7. Clearly as a group, it has a great deal of irresistible determination.

The play is for five actors with the principal role being one Maisie who is on stage for almost the entire of the two acts. To say the least it is a demanding role. The play is set in a care centre for people who have suffered some sort of mental incident. In the case of Maisie it was a car crash in which she was inexplicably involved and for which no reason can be found. The other four characters are her daughter, a nurse, a male general factotum, and another female inmate, Ethel. There is a considerable age range in these parts from mid-twenties to at least late forties which represents a challenge for the cast, none of whose age looks as if it exceeds their early twenties.

The plot deals with Maisie convinced she is normal negotiating with her daughter, who has her doubts, and the daily routine of the care centre which by definition too has its doubts about her mental health. An unlikely sort of facilitator for the action is Ethel in whom Moriarty has created an individual whose standard of “reality” is somewhat unhinged but there is something unsettlingly “rational” about her observations. She represents a fine counter point for much of the play to the more run-of- the-mill obsessions of the factotum and Maisie. Ethel could have been any age.

The subject of mental ill health is a brave one to choose for a play. For that alone Moriarty and Strive are to be congratulated in creating this play and touring it so extensively. In order to assess it fairly on stage it deserves a further production with the actors being nearer in age to the characters they are required to represent. That said the play had some fine dramatic moments particularly when Ethel was on stage. A more mature cast may well reveal a great many more strengths in the text.

Sadhbh Moriarty has made a very promising start to her career as a playwright and is a name to remember.