Mortal Sin – Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – Review
by Frank L

Mortal Sin written by Benjamin Reilly – August 18th – September 6th, 2025

It is 1963. Colm (Ben Reilly) and Peggy (Isolde Fenton) think, following the precedent set by the death of Pope John XXIII earlier in the year, that they should get a day off school following the assassination of JFK. They attempt to organise a protest to achieve this. That is the frame in which Reilly places this tale of two adolescents, in a small rural town, who are battling with the exigencies of uncomprehending parents and the arbitrary power of a power-obsessed nun at their school. They are also dealing with their burgeoning awareness of their own innermost feelings, which they must be secretive about. All of this meets in a delicious uncertainty of comic confusion.

Throughout this fifty-minute insight into the challenges facing adolescents, Reilly and Fenton are razor sharp. It is a great pleasure to watch them as they bring to life Reilly’s whip-smart text. The prevailing ignorance of what is happening in their bodies, coupled with the pieties mouthed by the hypocritical organs of the Church and its followers, is fertile ground for high comedy, and Reilly knows how to write it. Reilly and Fenton together know how to perform it. They are portraying two best friends from school because neither of them fits in with their more conventional classmates. They convey instinctively the sense that they have known each other all their lives.

In addition to his writing and acting skills, Reilly, with a fine voice, sang, unaccompanied, a verse from the Old Triangle. He is a young man of many talents.

The set has a back wall of a blue sky with an odd, hazy cloud. Strewn around the stage is some heavy jute netting, but more tellingly, an uprooted crucifix. The certainties of a former age are uprooted or being uprooted. But of course, those certainties, like a snail, have left a trail.

The audience gave the lunchtime performance deservedly a rapturous reception. Reilly and Fenton are both blessed with fine comic timing, and together they create a joyous piece of lunchtime theatre.

CAST AND CREW

WRITTEN BY: Benjamin Reilly
DIRECTED BY: Lee Coffey
PERFORMED BY: Isolde Fenton & Benjamin Reilly

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