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Following successful runs in London and New York, Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive had its Dublin debut as one of the headline acts in the Dublin Theatre Festival. Showing at the Gaiety, The Night Alive follows the classic formula for a successful Irish tragicomedy: frontloading the first half with a non-stop stream of jokes, then bringing the laughter to a sudden halt with shocking moments and general unpleasantness in the second half. The tightly written script, bolstered by pitch-perfect comedic performances, makes the funny bits a joy to watch; it’s the latter bits that are the problem.
The story is set entirely in the exceptionally messy living quarters of Tommy (Adrian Dunbar), a middle-aged loser renting a room in the home of his stingy uncle Maurice (Frank Grimes). The play opens with Tommy leading Aimee (Kate Stanley Brennan), a mysterious woman with a bloody nose and a cut lip, into the house, immediately setting the tone and pace as the two discuss the possibility that her nose is broken:
“Did it always bend to the left?”
“Yeah.”
“Your left or my left?”
As the play goes on, the cast are joined by Doc (Laurence Kinlan), Tommy’s slow-witted business partner and easily the most likeable character in the play. While the characters’ troubled backstories nudge and prod, the first half largely keeps events from getting too dour, cultivating a near-hysteria in the audience right up until the aforementioned unpleasant turn. Heavy on slapstick and old-school one-liners, this part showcases McPherson’s undeniable strengths as a writer. The cast, strong as their performances are (especially in the case of Kinlan as Doc), need only serve as vehicles for McPherson’s deft wit.
But, eventually the turning point comes, and The Night Alive loses its bearings somewhat. In a jarring, violent scene – following the first appearance of the immediately unnerving Ian Lloyd-Anderson as Kenneth – the play starts to make its case as a serious dramatic effort, a case which falls apart once the initial shock wears off.
One of the biggest issues with the play as it develops is how clichéd the characters all are: the mysterious, enticing woman; the cantankerous landlord; the eccentric but loveable fool. These broad character-types are some of the oldest in the book, and while this seems fitting in the earlier, broadly comedic segments, transferring those characters into a dramatic setting is a less-than-smooth operation. McPherson tries to evoke pathos by delving deeper into the characters’ previously-only-implied backstories: Tommy’s failed marriage and Aimee’s relationship to the psychopathic Kenneth. These lackluster contrivances are incongruous with characters who previously served primarily as incessant joke-spouters, in addition to the fact that these are tropes we’ve seen a thousand times before in other “sad and important” Irish plays. This clash also highlights some of the troubling elements of these dated stock characters. Aimee is a literally broken woman who acts as both a sex object and a damsel in distress, and ultimately serves as little more than a vector for Tommy’s desires and flaws to be projected through – Bechdel Test be damned. Doc’s character is even more troubling, resting in that awkward space between unintelligent and genuinely mentally disabled, raising numerous issues with his serving as a jester-figure and, in one scene, the equivalent of a kicked puppy for somewhat cynical tear-jerking purposes. These problems are exposed by the dramatic segments and are barely dealt with, McPherson preferring to benefit from the narrative applications of these old-fashioned roles than questioning them in any way.
However, these issues aren’t enough to condemn the play outright. The switch from brilliant comedy to lacking drama is far from absolute, and the second half contains its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments alongside the more dubious elements. The climactic scene, which could easily have been played as ponderous and bleak, bundles in physical comedy and verbal back-and-forths even as things build towards certain horror. The resulting scene isn’t entirely successful, but it’s far more interesting than the ineffectual attempts at straight drama that surround it, and hints at the better play The Night Alive might have been as a whole, if it took a more original approach to balancing tragedy and comedy throughout.
The Night Alive is showing in the Gaiety Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival until the 4th of October. Tickets €15-€45.
