Bloody Yesterday – Glass Mask Theatre – Review
by Frank L

Produced by Glass Mask Theatre
From 2nd – 28th of May at the Bestseller Cafe, 41 Dawson Street

Bloody Yesterday – Written by Deirdre Kinahan
Directed by Rex Ryan

Deirdre Kinahan has written this two-hander play for Glass Mask Theatre at their home in the Bestseller Cafe on Dawson Street. The cafe’s theatre space is intimate and you sit in a comfortable chair at a small table where you can have tea, a coffee, a drink or a snack. It is a welcoming environment.

Bloody Yesterday is the story of a marriage that did not work out. Lily (Elizabeth Moynihan) is the wife of the marriage, she’s English and followed Dan to his family farm in the West of Ireland where they produced two daughters, Siofra (Sinead Keegan) and Jess. Siofra is now a young woman and the play consists of Siofra explaining the household in which she was reared. It is interlaced with the popular music of the time where she can express her need to dance. Lily lives in the suburbs of  London and thinks a great deal about her romance with Dan, their two daughters and how she could not hack the life on a remote farm.

Siofra sets the scene of being brought up by her father Dan and a disapproving granny and then Lily takes up the story of how she fled the West of Ireland. There is an impressive dynamic in this unusual story of a mother leaving her children. Kinahan has written an engaging text where the characters of Dan, the Granny and Jess (the sister), are described in telling detail so that their qualities and inadequacies are tangible. More importantly, Kinahan explores the relationship between the mother and daughter. There is a great deal of humour but there is a reserved poignancy about a mother’s regret of having retreated and her daughter’s anger at being deprived of a mother.

Moynihan and Keegan bring to life Kinahan’s intelligent script and the fractured world in which the mother and daughter live. It made for an engaging, thought-provoking fifty minutes of entertainment. The convivial atmosphere of the Bestseller Cafe added to the pleasure of the evening. With the early start time, Glass Mask Theatre may well have created a location where people can relax after work and be entertained. Bloody Yesterday is an ideal piece for this new location which is a most welcome addition to the cultural life of Dublin.