When news
broke of the collapse of the current round of political attempts to
bring devolved government back to Northern Ireland, as it is found in
Edinburgh and Cardiff, government centres in other parts of the United
Kingdom, hundreds of us went to the theatre, specifically to The
Playhouse in Derry, to see Liam Campbell's terrific new play, The
Bog Couple.
The show
is a sell-out, which is great for theatres, but not for political
parties, who cannot show a side on which the phrase ‘sell-out’
can be scrawled. The play opens with a cabal of poker players
bantering and hectoring themselves into a lather of worry that one of
their members, Felix, has gone missing and may be severely depressed
as he has been rudely uncoupled.
Just as
seems to have happened with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and
Sinn Féin (SF) at Stormont, except that they’re both out of the
house now. Along with all the other parties, who, when you tot up
their mandates, represent a sizeable chunk of the voting population.
Thankfully,
Felix turns up and, in early scenes of uproarious slapstick, expertly
directed by Kieran Griffiths, involving keeping Felix away from open
windows, kitchen utensils and pills, all returns to calm. Oscar,
Felix’s friend, says he can stay until he gets himself sorted out.
Felix is astounded and delighted and, in the play's most deliciously
sentimental irony, Oscar admits that he is lonely.
Many of
us aahed from the comfort of the bleachers.
No one
wants to be lonely. Except perhaps Masters of the Universe-types who
think they rule the world from corporate, governmental and banking high-rises. Or, in our own little world, from a colonial heap in Stormont.
The
poker game in the play is a cabal. The talks in Stormont are a cabal.
And, as one member of the DUP is reported to have said, ‘no
preparation was made for the climb-down”. Silly that, for all
political talks, like relationships, proceed in compromises and
climb-downs, u-turns and revised promises.
The
differences between the play and the politics are that the play is a
rip-roaring laugh and that we trust the work before us and the
artists who bring it to us, to not let us down. They meet all our
desires not to be lonely. As a serial gag-fest, the play puts a
strain on our ability to keep up, at times. Just like the politicians
do. The play doesn't leave its audience behind, however. The
politicians do.
Of
course, they may have their eyes on other venues and settings. The
DUP on Westminster. Sinn Féin on Dublin. There are reports of
tension within the DUP between MPs, who wish to play power games
with Teresa May’s Tories and locally-based Members of the
Legislative Assembly (MLAs), who have to go to small towns and rural
parishes and explain to people that “yes, there will be some kind
of deal and an official recognition of Irish, just as there is in
Wales for Welsh and Scotland for Gaelic, because we are as British as
those places, but don’t worry, you won't have to put the name to
your Orange Hall in Irish above the front door”.
The
play’s strongest section is still funny, but more dramatically so.
It occurs in the second act, at the point where cultural and national
identity differences, partition (the border in the flat is drawn with
sugar, a form of sweet rather than hard Brexit, perhaps) and the
movement of people in the face of violence, including sectarianism,
are jousted between Oscar and Felix. They acknowledge each other's sacrifices and efforts. They hold to friendship. They acknowledge
hurt. But even they cannot hold together and Felix leaves/is thrown
out, depending on your interpretation.
As an
aside, the research commissioned by the Pat Finucane Centre into
Protestant migration from the West Bank of Derry-Londonderry,
1968-1980, by Dr Ulf Hansson and Dr Helen McLaughlin, will be
published in early March.
So here
we are with regard to the failed talks. Sinn Féin, and many others,
say a deal was close to hand, a classic fudge of language and
legislation, over the weekend past, sufficient to get the Taoiseach
from Dublin and the Prime Minister from London to put on their flak
jackets and venture into the cabal-infested hotspots of Stormont.
Usually such personages only land in the sticks when they can throw
laurel wreaths around and rub noses with natives in joyous
celebrations. This time the two leaders of the nations who guarantee
the legal standing of our wee country left with their garlands in
tatters and the sleety gusts of failure as their tailwinds.
Not so
Felix and Oscar. Change, but never failure. It’s a comedy, after
all. Or maybe they embrace failure as all there ever is. The words of
Samuel Beckett ring in our ears. We should go on and learn to
fail better.
We went
home smiling, after a fine night at the theatre. Just like John McGrath (A Good Night Out) said we could.
You
go into a space, and some other people use certain devices to tell
you a story. Because they have power over you, in a real sense, while
you are there, they make a choice, with political implications, as to
which story to tell – and how to tell it.
We woke
up to snow, recriminations and disagreements over what exactly did
happen. What we do know is that bumbling, austere and thoughtless Tories
will soon set budgets and take decisions on our hospitals, schools,
roads, rail and social services. It will be neither a gag-fest nor
dramatically funny.
Unlike
The Bog Couple by Liam Campbell, in a fine Playhouse
production, directed by Kieran Griffiths, well-served by a fine cast,
notably Pat Lynch and Gerry Doherty, as the principals, which is both
a riotous gag-fest and dramatically funny.
We
need to get the people off the bleachers and into the game, the
democratic game, where the cabal is shut down and the chips and the
cards go about fairly.
Not
easy.
As
Neil Simon said
Take
care of him/her. And make him/her feel important. And if you can do
that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of
every ten couples.
https://theatreideas.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/john-mcgrath-good-night-out.html
