Cuckoo Time – Glass Mask Theatre – Review

Dates: October 14 – November 1, 2025

Cuckoo Time by Carmel Winters

Lovisa (Camilla Griehsel) and Michael (Brendan Conroy) have lived very different experiences and are now in their more mature years. Michael was born and bred on a farm somewhere “on the edge of the Atlantic”. Lovisa is of Swedish origin, a singer by trade, and from her earliest years has had a life full of drama. She now finds herself having reached the end of the road of her peripatetic existence. She is estranged from her daughter and she counters her loneliness by singing as a chanteuse fuelled by wine in the local pub. Michael is recently widowed, a bit doddery, and alone. His only daughter has gone to London to make her name in acting. He is subsisting. Lou and Michael are two lonely people and in an emotional space that neither had envisioned happening to them.

Their lives have been very different but each is fascinated by nature, birds in particular, and gradually they find that they have similarities even if their lives have been polar opposites. An unlikely love begins to emerge between them but then there are societal forces which are driving them apart.

The Programme note states that the play was written for the Glass Mask Stage. As Lovisa sings many songs during the performance the play suits the Cabaret style of the theatre with the audience sitting at small tables. But the stage of this intimate theatre is small. The set is complex and includes fishing nets, corrugated sheeting and a large settle bed which serves many purposes during the course of the play. The audience must let their imagination take flight as numerous changes of scene take place.

The difference in background of Lovisa and Michael is underlined by their attire. Lovisa appears in city slick attire – leotard features prominently- while Michael is in classic patched elderly Irish farmer garb until Lovisa through necessity attires him in a dressing gown of red floral exuberance.

Griehsel sings several songs throughout the piece and gives a gutsy realisation of Lovisa whose language and behaviour is likely to be considered coarse and alienating by any community. She commands the stage. Conroy makes a suitably demented old man who also at times has to to morph into a barkeeper and shopkeeper as he handles the often obstreperous Lovisa. The two of them interact with ease as Lovisa and Michael as their unlikely relationship develops.

Both Lovisa and Michael are lonely for very different reasons. The strategies that individuals develop to handle the challenges of loneliness as the years mount are innumerable. Here Winters has given Lovisa and Michael enthusiasms to find each other through a thicket of weaknesses and failngs.

 Cast and crew
Writer & Director: Carmel Winters
Cast: Brendan Conroy
Cast: Camilla Griehsel
Music: Maurice Roycroft
Lights: Bill Woodland
Set: Ciara Murnane
Costume: Miglé Ryan
PR: Beth Strahan
Stage Manager: Nicholas Sturman

Produced by Miglé and Rex Ryan GMT Productions