Hue and Cry – Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – Review by Frank L.

until Feb 2nd

Hue and Cry – Written by Deirdre Kinahan

In a tidy, prim suburban drawing room leather jacketed Damian (Stephen Jones) is agitated. He paces around. It transpires that he is not welcome in this house, even though his presence is as a result of the death of his father. This had been his home. His stepmother is to him poison and his underlying rage against her is scarcely under control. An old school friend Kevin (Ste Murray), an only child, arrives and tries to calm Damian. They have had very different lives since their youth when they were both avid supporters of Shamrock Rovers. Damian has been somewhere near the drug-dependent bottom. Kevin has inherited his parents’ house and now earns his living as a choreographer. Kevin believes in counselling and the varied benefits of dance. They grapple with the very different hands that life has dealt them.

Jones is entirely convincing and his anger is scarcely contained against his stepmother. The words spill out of him but otherwise he uses monosyllables which come in realistic grunts. Murray is in comparison effete and it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover that he once was a supporter of the hoops and apparently still is. Each has his own problems due to their childhoods. It is as a result of their respective very different experiences and an underlying curiosity about each other which enables them to find a place of communication. They both exist at a lonely spot.

The set exudes an inoffensive, suburban atmosphere, an emotionally barren space, in which these two young men reveal their immediate awkward pasts. Kinahan gives them some comic lines which become intensified by the fact that everything is taking place on the eve of a funeral. She even has a short sequence of unlikely hilarity which the two actors execute beautifully.

First performed in 2007, this comparatively brief (about forty five minutes) two hander was a wise play to revive. It is a bit of a roller coaster of emotions but that adds to its pleasure.