Traitor – Project Arts Centre – Tiger Dublin Fringe Review by Frank L.

Dates Sep 21 – 24 @ 21:00 / Sep 24 @ 16:00 – Tickets €15 / €13 conc.
Duration 85 mins – Venue: Project Arts Centre Cube

Written by Shane Mac an Bhaird

The year is 2026. As a result of the economic and social turmoil over the previous decade, Ireland is on the verge of a new radical government. It will be led by the organisers of the protests in 2016. Grace (Roseanna Purcell) is one of those leaders and is on the brink of power. However she does not trust her nearest adviser Bannion (Aonghus Og McAnally) who is arguing for compromise. What seems to drive Grace’s vision is that in 2016, a close associate Finbar (Jamie Hallahan) died in traumatic circumstances arising out of the protests. A statue is about to be unveiled in his memory. Lizard (Kevin C. Olohan) is also a veteran of the 2016 protests but the intervening years have not treated him well. His mind is obsessed by mathematical formulas, tattooing and the need to grow his lizard-like tail.

The story line hops backwards and forwards between 2016 and 2026. It is difficult to understand from what is told about Finbar’s activities in the 2016 protests why a statue is about to be unveiled in his honour other than the manner of his death. That story is told by his mother Frances (Gillian McCarthy) who has little time for the rhetoric of the political forces which engulfed her son ten years ago.

One of the advantages of theatre is that unusual, unlikely or gruesome episodes are often better revealed off stage by a character referring to them in a speech. A good example in this play was Frances’s speech. The imagination of each member of the audience can then embellish in the privacy of his or her mind what actually occurred. Unfortunately this production gave the audience in addition the reality, acting out Finbar’s final moments.

The obtaining of political power accompanied by the compromises that are apparently inevitably needed to do so is undoubtedly a fine theme for a play. It is of everlasting interest. This play was an opportunity missed.