23 October 1997 Edition
Theatre: Real life, low life
The Rasherhouse by Alan Roberts
Dublin Fringe Festival
The New Theatre
43 East Essex Street
Dublin
`til 1 November
Tickets: £7/£6 (concessions)
This is an extraordinary play, rich with the raw finish of the homemade. Written by Alan Roberts and directed by Robert Lane, The Rasherhouse is about drugs, drugs and drugs. It is so much about drugs that at times it creeps into the veins of the audience, seated rigid with terror, closer than they ever want to get either to a theatre stage or to the dirty reality of a shared habit.
And then it is about so much more than drugs, as ever with drugs, and all the `mitigating factors' are there, carefully included in what amounts to a torrent of abuse heaped on the way things are for `some' in Ireland today.
The mainliners are primarily three women, imprisoned in a jail that could only be Mountjoy. The characterisation of Rosie, the dealer who calls herself `a businesswoman' is so convincing it leaves you guessing just which real-life low life she is based on. Mags, the new kid on the block, is so just like the girl next door it leaves you thinking that if it can happen to her...etc.
Mary, the angel of mercy, deals the dirty needle and the point of the play - the cycle of death-dealing and confinement from which there seems no escape. Una Kavanagh is superb in this role, but none of the other performances can be slighted. The reps of `normal' society are the screws, self-ridiculed by three fine performances, and who of course, at the end of the day, are part of the equality of scumbags the play depicts.
The Rasherhouse is about the sheer redundancy of prisons but it is also about the confinement of women, and of men, within set roles. The character Dommo, standing for the hit and miss between instant love and instant violence in the young urban male, is brilliantly played by Anthony Fox.
It is Fox who founded the Sionnach Theatre Company which has produced this play, and it is Fox who established the New Theatre, which is dedicated to encouraging young talent and to ``plays by Irish authors, focusing on social themes which affect young people today''.
Director Robert Lane has achieved something remarkable with this production, and his set design is an immaculate use of the limited space available.
Hardback chairs and a red gas fire make up the furnishings of the small backroom theatre that is the New, but the talent that has assembled there guarantees its future.
The Rasherhouse is on Monday to Saturday until 1 November. It is heavy going. But go.
By Rita O'Reilly
Dublin Fringe Festival
The New Theatre
43 East Essex Street
Dublin
`til 1 November
Tickets: £7/£6 (concessions)
This is an extraordinary play, rich with the raw finish of the homemade. Written by Alan Roberts and directed by Robert Lane, The Rasherhouse is about drugs, drugs and drugs. It is so much about drugs that at times it creeps into the veins of the audience, seated rigid with terror, closer than they ever want to get either to a theatre stage or to the dirty reality of a shared habit.
And then it is about so much more than drugs, as ever with drugs, and all the `mitigating factors' are there, carefully included in what amounts to a torrent of abuse heaped on the way things are for `some' in Ireland today.
The mainliners are primarily three women, imprisoned in a jail that could only be Mountjoy. The characterisation of Rosie, the dealer who calls herself `a businesswoman' is so convincing it leaves you guessing just which real-life low life she is based on. Mags, the new kid on the block, is so just like the girl next door it leaves you thinking that if it can happen to her...etc.
Mary, the angel of mercy, deals the dirty needle and the point of the play - the cycle of death-dealing and confinement from which there seems no escape. Una Kavanagh is superb in this role, but none of the other performances can be slighted. The reps of `normal' society are the screws, self-ridiculed by three fine performances, and who of course, at the end of the day, are part of the equality of scumbags the play depicts.
The Rasherhouse is about the sheer redundancy of prisons but it is also about the confinement of women, and of men, within set roles. The character Dommo, standing for the hit and miss between instant love and instant violence in the young urban male, is brilliantly played by Anthony Fox.
It is Fox who founded the Sionnach Theatre Company which has produced this play, and it is Fox who established the New Theatre, which is dedicated to encouraging young talent and to ``plays by Irish authors, focusing on social themes which affect young people today''.
Director Robert Lane has achieved something remarkable with this production, and his set design is an immaculate use of the limited space available.
Hardback chairs and a red gas fire make up the furnishings of the small backroom theatre that is the New, but the talent that has assembled there guarantees its future.
The Rasherhouse is on Monday to Saturday until 1 November. It is heavy going. But go.
By Rita O'Reilly