When it comes to the Fringe Festival, you can never quite know what to expect. Characterised by their alternate approach to classical theatre, Fringe is a season of experimentation and divergence. In a sea of shows trying to stand out, Efficacy 84 shines. Eccentric props, ingenious use of microphones, and piano accompaniment blended with a remarkably high standard of acting render Efficacy 84 an enthralling performance. Its crowning glory is its unwavering insistence upon a sense of truth.
Based upon real events, Efficacy 84 attempts to recreate the case of a newborn infant washing up on a Kerry shore in 1984 and explore the mystery it was shrouded in. With very little information available about the sequence of events, the play seeks to honour the story in fragments to approach an understanding of national trauma and grief. It is a story of confusion, loss, storytelling, and a woman who simply wants “to feel human.”
Symbolism is abundant; a still-shot scene of two characters nursing teacups motionlessly feels like an image of a stagnant Ireland, never moving forward; a teacup balanced upon a character’s nose is a sharp reminder of precarious circumstances. The set is minimalist and put to excellent use, with every prop being vital to the story is some way or another. The action, frozen in place for a minute, cannot continue until the kettle boils – the cast is as beholden to the set as the characters are to the situation they find themselves in.
Efficacy 84 is delightfully self-aware. The only critique one might have been able to make on the play is its vague plotline, where events occur out of order and without making a great deal of sense. However, Efficacy brilliantly anticipates its own potential shortcoming and transforms it into an opportunity to push the boundaries of conventional storytelling. Not only does the play accept its ambiguities, it embraces them. The latter half of the play explores the abundant intricacies that relate to adapting a real-life occurrence for the stage, all the while captivating the audience with scenes that at times tap gently on the fourth wall and knock it tumbling down at others, like rocks on a coastal Kerry cliff face free-falling into the Atlantic sea. It experiments with tenets of Russian formalism, using a technique the formalists called “остранение”, or “defamiliarization”, to remind the audience that what they are witnessing is not a real-life event, but a performance, one which is as frustrated with the lack of information available to it as the audience could be. The execution is extremely effective and particularly relevant to Irish scandals, where details are so often and so thoroughly swept under the rug.
Síofra Ní Mheara, leading the cast, is simply mesmerising. She brings the audience on an emotional journey, delivering monologues and dialogue with equal strength and intrigue. The play features the talent of several Trinity students, including Maia Purdue who effortlessly initiates the transition from the ‘conventional’ structure to its more adventurous endeavours. The cast are entirely in sync with each other, moving together to create a truly beautiful spectacle.
Efficacy 84 is concerned with Ireland’s national archive of trauma that exists to this day, and how a country can find the release needed to move forward. The play is a harrowing recollection that does not judge, but witnesses the workings of “a thing of beauty and of absolute secrecy”. Expressive, empathetic, and immensely enjoyable, Efficacy is everything Irish theatre should aspire to be.
Rating: ●●●●●
To learn more about this impressive show, click here to read TN2’s interview with director Luke Casserly earlier this month.
