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“Not all cells are made of metal and concrete,” notes Leper, one half of the fiery duo in Lee Coffey’s Leper + Chip. A play that imprisons its sole two protagonists in an inescapable world of violence, murder, and inevitable tragedy, Coffey’s two-hander holds Leper and Chip in a desperate world from which there is no escape. Directed by Karl Shiels and starring Conall Keating as Leper and Amilia Stewart as Chip, this production by Bitter Like a Lemon blurs the lines between love and hate and moves at lightning speed towards its rambunctious and bloody climax.
Set in inner-city Dublin, Leper + Chip imagines a world of absent mothers, alcoholic fathers, fifty-something year-old cougars in cheap leopard print fur coats and a girl called Pringle because of her predilection for that particular brand of tubed crisps. Leper + Chip meet at a party, drunkenly flirt, and fool around in an upstairs bedroom before a brawl ensues which sees young men and women brutally attacking each other with bread boards and any other available kitchen utensil — Leper’s mate Beaver even gets locked in a fridge by Chip’s best friend, Pringle.
None of this is actually seen on stage as the story is retold by Leper and Chip who both stand on opposite sides of the sparse set, recounting their own versions of how they first encountered each other. It is as maniacal as it is hilarious, if at times a little confusing. To blink is to miss, as Shiels directs an incredibly fast-paced piece of theatre that sees Keating and Stewart brilliantly bounce off each other. The main thrust of Leper + Chip’s action centres around Leper frantically searching for the group of girls who wreaked havoc on his house the night before.
Laura Honan’s set occupies only half of the Project Cube’s stage, consisting simply of a white wooden box. As the audience take their seats, Leper and Chip are already on stage, miming fight scenes before the action of the piece begins. This works extremely well in a drama that elevates violence to levels of performance and entertainment. However, at times, the piece — which is riddled with expletives, racist remarks, and essentially writes the guidebook on how to be as politically incorrect as you please — moves towards cliché and stereotype, but Keating and Stewart manage to pull this back with their snappy, hilarious and ultimately tragic interplay.
As the forty-five minute drama ends, Leper, who tells us that the only thing he had a knack for at school was Shakespeare “because I fancied my teacher”, stands alone on stage, illuminated by a single spotlight, and observes that he and Chip were “two star-crossed lovers who knew each other but a day.” His words are anything but a twee reference to Shakespeare’s most famous tragic lovers, as Coffey’s modern inner-city tale of Romeo and Juliet is shocking and heart breaking in equal measure. Leper and Chip are creatures of circumstance — eternally incarcerated and doomed never to find their place in a harsh and apathetic world.
