Across The Fence – Dublin Fringe Festival – Review
by Brian Merriman

Across The Fence – Thomas Collins
Image Credit: Danny Kendrick

Venue – Dublin Municipal Theatre at Smock Alley – Boys’ School
Duration – 80mins

Across the Fence is an important piece of new Irish theatre. Despite being a very curious people, many still know little about this enduring culture that has existed in parallel to mainstream Irish society for centuries. Thomas Collins does us all a service in the well-structured, methodical and gentle way he unpacks some of the challenges facing a people often viewed with suspicion and prejudice.

There has been much debate and research on whether the Travelling Community and the Irish are genetically separate or identical. Travellers have their own culture, language (Shelta), music, and traditional lore. Stories that refer to Travellers separating from the indigenous population around the time of Cromwell’s ‘to hell of to Connaught’ in the 1600s still abound.

It is equally curious that, having lived in Ireland for perhaps a millennium and being part of the Irish identity, there are still questions, myths and differences that a play like Across The Fence helps to identify.

We, as an isolated island society, were great at finding differences among ourselves and emphasising them. Northsiders, Southsiders, Townie, Culchie, Catholic, Protestant, etc and yet the incompleteness of our understanding of our closest neighbours prevails.

There are differences: views on Catholicism, family hierarchy, dispute resolution, employment, the status of women, etc. These cultural clashes come to the surface when a Traveller wants to marry someone outside their own community. They come to the surface when a Traveller is housed in the neighbourhood. Jimmy, just out of prison, encounters these barriers as he works to improve his lot.

Enter Aoife (a bubbly and comedic performance by Daisy Moon), who is not a Traveller, and an unexpected father/daughter type relationship develops with Jimmy (a broody Thomas Collins). She also feels different and notices how people treat difference in school and at home. She doesn’t want to learn that way.

Jimmy is used to being treated differently from school to adulthood, so the sharing of common experiences finally gives the complex young woman a listening ear.

Her Mother (a fraught Katie St John)  has raised her by herself and compensates for her failings by being overprotective about the stranger next door. The other neighbours, Maura (a compassionate Fiona Breen) and her son Tommy (a volatile Emmet Farrell), have a contrasting reaction to Jimmy, based on if one wrongs you, they all do. Maura has Traveller ethnicity, something Tommy remains oblivious to, as his anger proves the line ‘prejudice is passed on like a family heirloom’.

Director Una Ni Nuallain cast the piece well and utilised the various levels available in the Boys School to fine effect. Thomas Collin’s intelligent and well-constructed script moves along at a slow and steady pace. There is more potential to move the pace along, and to explore the light and shade within the tightly honed scenes. There is scope for a greater shift in mood as the main pair get to know each other and share confidences, despite Jimmy’s natural defence mechanisms, which he conveys authentically.

Across The Fence is an important, well-presented piece of new Irish theatre. There is a fine team here. The underscore is Tabhair Dom do Lamh – Give Me Your Hand, and that positive message permeates through to the audience, despite the playing out of prejudice on stage. It reminds us strongly of our shared Irish heritage. All this piece now needs is a soft cloth to buff up the existing potential for contrast in the mood, pace, and delivery, as it has all the potential to shine even more effectively as a theatrical and cultural gem!

Written and starring Thomas Collins (Jimmy)

Cast: Daisy Moon (Aoife), Katie St John (Siobhan), Fiona Breen (Maura), Emmet Farrell (Tommy)

Director: Una Ni Nuallain

Producer: Aisling Whelan

Production Designer: Izzy Hamilton

Sound Designer: Sophie O’Toole

Lighting Designer: Claire McLoughlin

Venue and times: Dublin Municipal Theatre @ Smock Alley – Boys School