Murder of Crows employs familiar devices – delinquent pupils, a mysterious grandmother, and a trip to an eerie forest – to draw the audience into a world that is at once both recognisable and enigmatic.  There is nothing inherently unique here, but far from being dull, the play weaves together threads of a story which is acutely comedic at times and breathtakingly sombre at others.

 

Dee, Jess, and Sam, fifth-years in an inner-city Dublin Catholic school, are sent on a punitive retreat after smashing their teacher’s car windscreen. Although the girls are largely apathetic, Dee’s grandmother is perturbed and warns them against going at all costs. A sense of foreboding hovers over the play while the girls embark on their trip. As the plot grows darker, grandmother’s warning echoes louder and louder against the backdrop of the forest: “Blazing secrets you won’t shake. Stay… stay, or the crows will take.”

 

Cast members Katie Honan, Aisling O’ Mara, and Amilia Stewart are captivating from beginning to end. They seamlessly shift between characters, from schoolgirls to teachers to boys from Terenure. The actors bounce off each other with ease and collaboratively translate a story which will lodge itself in your chest.

 

Ultimately, the central tenet of Murder of Crows is friendship between women and the intensity with which it can grow. Murders of crows are known for banding together and chasing predators when one of their members are hurt. This play explores bonds between women and the lengths they will go to in order to protect each other. As the girls confront a situation wherein they know the judicial system will fail them, the play touches a note which is hauntingly relevant to Ireland today.

 

Murder of Crows is a show which deserves to be looked and looked at again. Its deceptively simple surface is underwritten by a complex web of double-meaning and insinuation. Murder of Crows walks the line of amusing and horrifying and is both contemporary and timeless.

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Image Courtesy of Project Arts Centre. 

Murder of Crows ran from the 5-10 February 2018.