The Weir at The Donmar

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A few days later, with jet lag a distant memory, we headed off to The Donmar to see an excellent production of a wonderful play. My companions and I all breathed a sigh of relief, having witnessed a spate of not such good choices at this great venue.

The Weir written by Conor McPherson in 1997 had me spellbound for the whole of its 1hr 40minutes and I was really sorry when it ended.  The play seems most unprepossessing at first look, centred as it is in a lonely pub deep in the Irish countryside, where four old blokes spin yarns to try and compete for the attention of an attractive female newcomer.  But this couldn’t be further from the truth because it is a modern classic.  It helps that all five of the cast are faultless from start to finish and the audience is gripped, not just by the stories they tell, but how they tell them.  Through their telling, one glimpses how the storytellers’ lives have not exactly panned out how they would have hoped.  Incredibly moving, especially because the whole thing is so understated.  Realistic, too, thanks to the brilliant set design by Tom Scutt.  I felt as if I were actually sitting in an Irish pub eavesdropping on the locals.

The play opens with the sublime Brian Cox as Jack, an elderly unmarried small-time garage owner and pub regular entering the bar.  The scene is set and several small, but golden touches Mr. Cox brings to this entrance set the seal on the evening being a good one.  In fact the whole play is infused with silent, magical pauses and business by the entire cast.  The barman, Brendan, portrayed by the excellent Peter McDonald, appears and is immediately dispensed wisdom based loosely on what would appear to be Jack’s limited knowledge of the opposite sex.  Jack is obviously the bombastic joker of the pack and Brendan the strong, silent type. Next to appear is handyman Jim, wonderfully played by Ardal O’Hanlon, who joins them for a short one (read this as several).  Jim still lives with his mother who “has been fading for years” and is a little on the dim side.  Their talk soon turns to Finbar, a married man who has been seen escorting a woman around the village, their main grievance being, why, when he is wed and they are single, should he be the one performing this duty.  When he eventually appears alongside ‘the woman’, Valerie, one realizes that this establishment is not used to female customers.  One of the funniest sights is Brendan dispensing a half pint glass of wine (retrieved from his living quarters out the back) to Valerie, but not before holding it up to the light as though waiting for it to form a head.  Risteard Cooper, excellent as Finbar is at once shown to be a bit of a wide boy, dressed as he is in a pale linen suit.  He’s in sharp contrast to the dress code of the other regulars.

Following their entrance the banter turns to the spooky storytelling, with each one trying to outdo the other and Dervla Kirwan’s nervous Valerie almost succeeds in outdoing them all.  Her tangible grief on recounting her own ghost story is all the more effecting, told as it is without the blather of the men’s. Then when it’s Jack’s turn to recount how he let the love of his life slip away, the sadness takes your breath away.  Humour and a sadness that’s never overdone, thanks to Josie Rourke’s delicate direction, marks this production out as a masterpiece.

I loved it and felt aggrieved when ‘last orders’ came and went.