A day in the life of the small town of Inishfree becomes a season in hell in the hands of playwright Enda Walsh. In the character of Thomas Magill, he has created a tormented soul: part everyman, part Christ figure. In the opening moments of this unstinting solo performance by Cillian Murphy, we enter the echo chamber of Magill's mind, where past and present fight for his attention on an endless taped soundtrack. Walsh has used reel-to-reel tape recorders in other plays, but here they take centre stage and are used to explode the restrictions of the monologue form with their cacophony of voices.
Mistermanby Enda WalshBlack Box, Galway arts festivalUntil 20 JulySee detailsRevisiting this play, which was first staged in 1999, Walsh has expanded the text significantly; and, under his own direction for Landmark Productions, it is given a monumental staging. Jamie Vartan's exposed two-storey set is a vast warehouse strewn with tyres and cast-off furniture. Murphy tears through this bleak space, playing a cast of increasingly hostile small-town characters, and engaging in a ritualised dialogue with the disembodied voice of his "Mammy". On a mission to bring religion and morality to the town, Magill records his conversations with his neighbours and jots down critical summaries of their characters, like a director giving performance notes to actors.
The comic absurdity of Magill's opening moments darkens to become a macabre study of a man who, in trying to control everything around him, has become slowly unhinged. The scale of the staging dilutes some of the intensity in this production, but Murphy is riveting, even in scenes that seem over-extended. This is not new territory for Walsh, but a bravura elaboration of his theatrical vision, in which we shift with every turn Magill makes, feeling sympathy for him, even as he falls deeper into violent confusion.
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