With Porcelain, writer Margaret Perry has created a powerful study of the mechanics of mental isolation.

 

Bridget and Hat lead paralleled lives in 1890s Tipperary and modern-day London. Both Hat and Bridget, the latter of whom is based on a real-life person, grow up near the same fairy fort and find themselves drawn to it at different times in their lives (in Hat’s case because of her fascination with Bridget’s story). Both women have somehow lost themselves. What’s not clear to the audience is whether or not they would agree with this description, but when Bridget’s husband Michael tells her she’s not herself, she answers ‘What else could I be?’, and Hat reacts in much the same way when when her partner Bill describes her in a similar manner.

 

Perry’s carefully crafted characters are superbly directed by Conor Cleary, as well as well-executed by Toni O’Rourke (Bridget) and Lola Petticrew (Hat).  Of the two protagonists, Hat is the more tangible. A vibrant, youthful character, we get to know her as she’s about to move to London and in the exchange she has with Bill when she first meets him. Hat loses faith in her place in the world following the birth of her first child, but remains categorically present in her story. Bridget, on the other hand, has an otherworldly presence almost from when we first encounter her. Her husband feels helpless to react to her withdrawal from their shared life, turning to the doctor and the priest for help. Michael’s (Keith McErlean) attempt to exert power over Bridget is portrayed as that of a man unable or unwilling to comprehend his wife’s behaviour.

 

Throughout the play, the two couples feature in alternate scenes, without strict demarcation between past and present-day happenings, though the echoes between them are overt. In one of the later scenes between Hat and Bill, Bridget lies curled up at the front of the stage. Although she does not utter as many sentences throughout the play as the rest of the characters, O’Rourke’s presence is powerful. Doors at either end of the living room setting, and patio doors at the back, are used to good effect to facilitate frequent switches between stories.

 

Sense of place is important in the play. Traditional, late nineteenth-century Tipperary’s Bridget Cleary was an independent woman for her day, both in her inner life and financially; while at the start of the play, Hat yearns for independence from the place where she grew up. Postnatally in London she is gripped by similar feelings of carrying a heaviness as what Perry’s version of Bridget experienced in their shared homeplace. Hat is repeatedly visited by a shaman-like being who offers her the opportunity to leave her body and be replaced by a changeling. She could become anything she wants; she could become ‘a piece of lint in somebody’s pocket’.

While both women progressively become more unsure of their place in the world Michael and Bill both start off as sympathetic characters. It is in the unfolding, and especially towards the denouement, of the stories that their reactions diverge. Michael gives up on Bridget and betrays her completely – Bridget’s final scene is depicted through masterful use of light – Bill in contrast has trust in Hat even  as she struggles to cope.

 

This is Perry’s professional debut and first full-length play. The young Cork playwright’s achievement has a hint of Marina Carr in its engagement with the mystical past of Ireland. Perry has modelled a fascinating version of Bridget Cleary from the reports of her real-life story and provided an insightful exploration of how life for a modern-day women in a similar position might compare. The production as a whole is an understated triumph.

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