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Beginning is a mildly comic, tremendously moving drama by David Eldridge, which ran in the Gate Theatre from 28th March-24 April and was directed by Marc Atkinson. The play bears witness to a first meeting between Laura (Eileen Walsh) and Danny (Marty Rea), both nearly forty, as they try to negotiate between their mutual attraction and their shared fear of a new relationship. The play considers the immense bravery needed to ‘begin’ something new—bravery in the face of the seemingly insurmountable danger of heartbreak.
Indeed, ‘bravery’ is at the centre of this performance, which lasts just over a hundred minutes—the audience strapping in for a warts-and-all interrogation of love in this age, at that age. It takes tremendous bravery for Danny and Laura to begin the unutterably painful process of opening up to one another. It is brave to rely almost entirely on the performances of Rea and Walsh, and fiercely brave to give these complex characters the time they need to unfold naturalistically.
Kevin Gleeson’s sound design is sparse but effective when used, yet the majority of the play consists of dialogue or, indeed, dialogue’s oft-neglected twin: silence. Bouts of silence, even complete stillness, punctuate this performance. Silence is one of the most difficult-to-use (and therefore underused) tools in the actor’s arsenal, and director Atkinson should be given tremendous credit for allowing his actors simply to be onstage, to exist in the world the production has so convincingly constructed. Eruptions of emotion and conflict are the more convincing precisely because of the electric, bristling silence they interrupt.
Reading Atkinson’s thoughtful introduction in the programme, you would be forgiven for thinking that this play is going to centre on the impossibility of finding love online, and how meaningful connections between people can pretty much only ever come about through person-to-person contact. While it is, in many ways, this, it has none of the painful polemicism one tends to associate with that sort of art generally—in which the protagonists’ one way ticket to emotional and spiritual fulfilment is just a putting-down-of-the-phone away. Do not fear this, as the script is almost impossibly nuanced and, furthermore, far too heartachingly realistic to be polemic. Social media certainly gets discussed by the pair but it exists organically in their discussion—the audience don’t get that awful sensation that it’s there because the script wants to make a point about Cambridge Analytica. What could have been a source of artificiality is, therefore, skilfully transformed into yet another source of authenticity: Danny and Laura discuss the online world casually, particularly while they’re in the process of breaking the ice and, indeed, when was the last time you spoke to someone without social media coming up at least once in your first hour of acquaintance?
This play is startlingly narrow in focus. It pays sustained, near-fierce attention to one moment, in one place, between two people. In doing so, it not only foregrounds a set of issues of great importance (issues somehow curiously neglected in popular thought today), thanks to the mastery with which its cast of creatives presents the piece, it feels completely concentrated. Sarah Bacon’s remarkably detailed set spans the Gate stage and Sinéad McKenna’s restrained, subtly-shifting lighting design creates a mood of ambience and intimacy. The ample stagespace is ably inhabited by both actors, with Walsh’s tremendous stage presence in particular filling the stage seemingly effortlessly. A convincing, nuanced script is brought to life by virtuoso performances of minute detail and sustained emotional engagement.
