Writer: Donal Ryan
Director: Andrew Flynn
From a Low and Quiet Sea is adapted from Donal Ryan’s successful novel of the same name, by the author, the cast, and Andrew Flynn; Flynn also directs. Decadent Theatre Company premiered the play in the 2022 Galway International Arts Festival and now bring it on tour to 18 venues around Ireland, Galway being the first. There is an almost capacity crowd in the Town Hall Theatre for this one night showing of the play. Adaptations tend to have specific challenges and this production bears the signs of previously existing in prose format rather than being scripted for the stage. The text is poetic, sometimes lyrical, sometimes funny, but switches rather abruptly at times from storytelling mode to a narration of events happening in the present. There are four narrators who come on stage in turns throughout the night, each to advance their own story as a monologue. At no point do the characters interact, even at the end when their stories do.
The parts are played with integrity and poise by all four actors, and their stories are a mixture of tragedy and mundanity. Small details of ordinary lives, lived in rural Ireland and Syria, are interposed with heart-breaking vignettes which contend with death, racism, malicious slander and murder. Darragh O’Toole as Lampy relates the comical conversations he has with the older people in his care as he drives his bus but intersperses his narration with heartsore reminiscences of his lost love Chloe. Farouk (Aosaf Afzal) adores his wife and daughter and would never place them in danger but life, and the sea, must be navigated. Florence, played by Eva Bartley, is a consummate mother who lives for her son, surely she cannot have dark secrets to reveal? Denis Conway’s character John is the epitome of all that is rotten at the heart of Irish society: a self-termed lobbyist, his disgusting behaviour towards others is not at all redeemed by his self-awareness and ability to love – just the once.
The themes presented here are dark and the isolation of each character, both physically on stage and as individual protagonists in their own story, comes across almost oppressively. Even the end, when everyone is finally on stage together, is not a straightforward tidying up of the disparate threads – and rightly so, as this play is not offering any easy answers or happy-ever-onwards. After a slow start, the momentum of the storylines increases and we, the audience, become more invested in the climactic reveals of the last scene. From a Low and Quiet Sea is a thoughtful and well-constructed tale of four damaged lives, for the part most overcoming the lack of dramatic propulsion inherent in the monologue format.
Touring Throughout May and June 2023.
The Review's Hub Score
Lyrical
