Bullied – Viking Theatre, Dublin

Writer and Director: Michael Hartnett

Dublin Region Touring Theatre, founded by Vinnie McCabe and Michael Hartnett, brings new play Bullied, to Dublin’s Viking Theatre.

The play takes place in the living room of a grandfather’s house and the plot revolves around two characters- a grandfather, played by Vinnie McCabe and his granddaughter played by Áine Collier.

A director’s task is to devise a framework wherein the story of the play is clearly communicated to the audience through continuity, flow, and pace; McCabe in the dual role of actor and director manages both superbly. McCabe plays the role of the grandfather with convincing sensitivity and vulnerability. In one particular scene, the audience truly understood grandfather’s anxiety and frustration when he tries to grapple with modern technology, and distant clinical voices, while he tries to sort out arrears with the gas company who are about to cut him off.

Grandfather worries desperately about his teenage granddaughter, Anna who has come to live with him, owing to parental conflict. Anna is struggling with rejection and exclusion by her peers at her new school. He watches helplessly as his granddaughter slowly loses her self-confidence and esteem.

Phones become the third character in the play displacing the comfortable atmosphere of the home, through incessant messaging and calls. The invisible character of Conor- a schoolfriend, is a conduit, relaying the scathing messages to Anna, who becomes addicted to the phone- fearful yet attached to every new message. In the subtlety of this device, Hartnett is focussing our attention on passivity, which contrives to assist bullying and deviant behaviour and can be equally damaging.

Both actors co-create beautifully sensitive and pensive moments in Michael Hartnett’s dialogue. Bullied is a meaningful piece of writing, subtly crafted to draw us into the character’s world. The intimacy of the Viking Theatre assists the audience to become part of the action. This valuable production deserves to be seen by a wider audience through the medium of film or T.V.

Runs Until 19^th August 2023.