Three great writers. Three great pieces of writing. Three one – man shows. Trilogy: The State of Us was a powerful collection of three shows by Peter Duffy in the Smock Alley Theatre this month.

The Great Hunger

Amyrose Forder 

On a cold, crisp November evening, Smock Alley’s wonderful setting of the Boys’ School theatre was my refuge of choice, here to see a production of Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger. It is the first in Peter Duffy and Loft Productions’ “Trilogy: The State of Us”, self described as “an attempt to explore aspects of how we have come to “our present state”, an ambitious collection of short pieces performed over two weeks by acclaimed actor Peter Duffy.

A one-man-show, Duffy performed the long-poem with an ease and clarity over an hour or so. Dressed in tattered suit on a stage void of overcrowding, a world where “life is more lousy than savage” was relayed, marrying themes of fields, fertility and flesh.

Duffy chose to address the audience directly, removing the fourth wall. He made eye contact with every member of the compact audience, heightening the sense of intimacy in the story. The poem tells the tale of Patrick Maguire, a middle-aged farmer in 1930s Monaghan, and his life in the new republic deprived of artistic, sexual and economic comfort. Duffy notably exerted moments of silence, with the muteness on stage as poignant an element as the words of the poem.

A clever backing track of farmland sounds, bugs and weather, as well as fading lights, gave respite to listeners taking in the themes and stories of Kavanagh’s wonderful work.

While sometimes Duffy’s accent flailed and I would have appreciated a more obvious shift in tone, his voice was soothing and appropriate to Kavanagh’s lexicon. His performance was not angry about the societal injustices thrusted upon the new republic’s farmers, more recounting the lethargy and unamused acceptance of the country’s farmers.

An interruption of the radio on backtrack reminding the audience that The Great Hunger is set in mid 20th century Ireland, not the 1800s like one might suspect due to the negligence of modernity from the stage.

The stage added a visual element to the production, with the depiction of a country depicted a country farmhouse we’ve all visited. It was fairly full, with a desk, scarecrow, hay, compartmentalising the scenes for the trajectory of the poem: a year. There were pillows on the pews of the theatre, like the pillows on chairs, inviting us in for a cup of tea and a chat.

Whilst the energy was kept low and the gestures small, Duffy emphasised the intrinsic message of the poem: that this country failed that era. The audience responded with quietness, except for a few titters at lewder moments. It was such a joy to experience an epic poem aloud, and made a nice change from my beloved slam poetry recitations. Duffy did not crescendo, but he certainly performed an excellent homage to Patrick Kavanagh.

“She was in love with passion and its weakness
And the wet grass could never cool the fire
That radiated from her unwanted womb in that metaphysical land
Where flesh was thought more spiritual than music
Among the stars – out of reach of the peasant’s hand.”

 

Rating: ●●●●○

“The Grand Inquisitor – Fyodor Dostoyevsky”

Cianan Monaghan

Rating: ●●○○○

Peter Duffy examines the ‘self’ as individual and its perspective in modern Irish society through his Trilogy – The State of Us. With the intent of portraying “The Grand Inquisitor” as a stand-alone piece, Duffy frames the excerpt from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880) without its story-teller, Ivan. Alyosha’s inquisitive interruptions and Ivan’s criticism of religion are axed, as the story set in sixteenth century Seville stands for itself.

While the audience took to their seats, Jesus, played by Fabiano Roggio, paces the stage, stopping intermittently to look about him; surveying his cell. A table sits against the back-wall, a jug of water and cup upon it, and a lone, small wooden stool sits to the right, positioned diagonally facing the audience. As the play begins, a partially illuminated figure darkens a raised arch; the Grand Inquisitor, played by Peter Duffy. He marches slowly towards the stage holding one lit candle that shines below his dark expression. Jesus stops pacing to examine the wooden stool with a carpenter’s eyes. The Inquisitor enters the stage, beginning his monologue with the spectre that haunts his true beliefs and ideologies, as well as that of the Catholic Church.

Peter Duffy portrays the Inquisitor as the irreverent, immovable, and irredeemable conscience of the Catholic Church. Preaching, or even soliloquizing, he dismisses Jesus as that which spurned the rebel in man to greater unhappiness, by declining the three temptations of the devil in the wilderness. All the while Fabiano Roggio portrays a silent Jesus, presenting in his hands unbridled compassion and love. To have died once for the sins of humanity, fifteen centuries later Jesus must die again for the sins of the Inquisitor; the rotten fruit born from his absence.

The repetition of the Inquisitor would have been spaced between the confusion of Alyosha and the response of Ivan. With this element removed, the speech of the Inquisitor comes across as repetitive and stodgy. Though not originally intended, a layer of emotion is lacking throughout the play in the performance of the Inquisitor, that would have given a more personal feeling to Jesus’ final expression of compassion. The overwhelming love of Jesus was acted without fault, reflecting in its performance the pain of a people manipulated by the Church and devoid of his light.

 

“The Murders at Wildgoose Lodge, Carleton and Me”

Cianan Monaghan

Rating: ●●●○○

 

Set as a play in two acts, two hundred years apart, William Carleton’s story ‘Wildgoose Lodge’ from Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, Second Series (1833) and Peter Duffy’s ‘Trial of William Carleton’ present the manipulative power of narrative storytelling. The fictional story is the only account, and widely accepted as true, of the arson attack on Wildgoose Lodge in 1816 perpetrated by Ribbonmen, poor Irish Catholics who were active against Landlords and opposed to Orangeism.

Groans can be heard from the stage, under a table and stool, covered by a white cloth. Appearing like a ruin, or possibly forgotten furniture being protected from the dust. A figure, played by Peter Duffy, with a weaved basket on his head and a black leather coat, comes out from under the table and ominously walks off the stage and up the galley among the audience. After the stage is reset for the next scene, the figure returns and removes the dress before taking a seat. Duffy begins to tell the story of the murders at Wildgoose Lodge as William Carleton. The staging presented a Church where the Ribbonmen met before the arson attack, and then the Lodge where the brutal attack took place.

In an odd change of tone, the second act presents a court case. Peter Duffy plays himself as the Prosecution, as well as the Judge and the Defense, moving between each table to deliver his lines. Duffy highlights the propagandist nature of Carleton’s story, wishing to gain favour with the British Monarchy out of self-interest, and portraying the Irish poor as savage. Duffy explains how the story has shadowed the local community even two hundred years later, his own personal experience as a local, and condemns the biased focus of Carleton, and his partially fabricated detailing of events.

The haunting figure of the first act evoked a dark sensation for the story that followed. The tale was excellently told with the character of the time and the accent of the area. The stage setting was minimal, but effective. It accompanied the narrative, rather than dominating the imagery. However, as setting the record straight seemed to be Duffy’s intent, the court case that followed Carleton’s story fell flat. It had little if any dramatic substance, and failed to equal the impact of the first act.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *