When I first started driving I had this annoying device installed in the car by the insurance company. Whenever I went over 30mph and 60mph it would beep loudly at me to remind to make sure I was within the speed limit of the road I was driving on. I had this irritating thing in my car for two years. Imagine for a second the amount of annoying beeps that filled my world over that two year period. Why am I telling you this? No reason at all really, I just wanted to rant about it for a moment. Just kidding.
The beep reminds me of a play I drove to Cork to see with three ‘as random as you can get’ work mates. I didn’t normally hang out with the three people and I never attended plays so why I went to Cork with them for this reason is still beyond me. Either way the play was excellent. To the best of my memory it was the last play I went to see and that’s going back maybe seven or eight years.
So, it’s been long overdue that I went to see another one and the play that I attended just opened in the New Theatre in Temple bar this week.
Three Days Of Rain by Richard Greenberg is running until the 25th July and if you have no plans for your Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night you won’t be going far wrong catching this wonderful play some evening.
Produced by Company D Theatre, whose last offering ‘Collected Stories’ by Donald Marguilles in 2014 was critically acclaimed, ‘Three Days Of Rain’ is split in two halves across two generations. The actors morph into different roles between Walker, Nan and Pip the first time we meet them, and Ned, Lina and Theo when they return as for the second half that brings us back to 1960 to explain what exactly happened during those three days of rain and how it all lead to the future and personalities we’re introduced to at the beginning.
Briefly put and not to give too much away, Walker find a journal in his father’s old, dingy apartment that he had held onto in secret for most of his life. Walker seems desperate to work out the secrets of the journal but Nan does not. After their fathers passing, they find themselves in the apartment, seeing each other for the first time in months and are due to the lawyer’s office to discuss what has been left to them by their father. Cut to them returning to the apartment only to have found out that the family home that Walker had his hopes hanging on for a better future and life for himself, has been left to Pip. Why? You’ll find out in the second half of the show, so you’ll just have to go see it.
Michael McLaughlin plays the parts of Walker and Ned, instantly grabbing your attention when he opens with a monologue piece directly to the audience and is a powerful, confident and convincing actor on stage. As I’ve mentioned, each actor plays two roles and with Michael, I feel he has the tougher of the characters that are portrayed, with both of them having strong and distinct flaws. But changing from one person to another seems effortless to him and his performance is excellent.
Lisa Tyrell opens as Nan when we see her first as the somewhat stressed, annoyed and frustrated sister of Walker, who has no interest in finding out the secrets that lay within her father’s old journal. She tries to be the calming voice of reason between Walker and Pip and is the one caught in the middle. Bringing these characters to life seems natural to her, as she moves about the stage taking on Walker and Pip with ease and confidence in her ability.
David Scott plays the parts of Pip and Theo and is also introduced to the audience through a monologue delivered straight to us. When the interaction with Walker and Nan takes place in the dingy apartment after they all return from the lawyer’s office, he brings a sense of relief and humour to the play, taking us quickly and amusingly through the years from when they were ten years old and tip-toeing around Walker all the time because he was ‘in so much pain’, right up to the present moment, where they are still tip-toeing around Walker because he’s ‘in so much pain.’
The cast are really solid in all their roles and with a very minimal prop presence around them, you can’t help but feel that if there was absolutely nothing on stage with them, they’d all still easily drag you right into the story with ease.
I feel there’s a different level of acting when it comes to the theatre. There are no cameras, there are no ‘cuts’ and there are no second, third and fourth takes. When you’re on that stage, you either get it right or you get it wrong. And these three, with the amazing play written by Greenberg, certainly seem to have got it right.
You can check out Company D Theatre here: https://www.facebook.com/companydtheatre?fref=ts and also the New Theatre in Temple Bar here: https://www.facebook.com/The.New.Theatre?fref=ts
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