Writer: Lee Coffey
Director: Ian Toner
The intimate and inviting space of Glass Mask Theatre at The Bestseller Café breaks down all barriers between the actors and their audience. From the outset of Lee Coffey’s impactful play Jigsaw, we are immersed in the tragic life of ‘Jim’ who exists in a homeless microcosm of stress, exposure and uncertainty on the streets of Dublin. “That’s all that counts…today.”
Performances by Alan Devine and Craig Connolly are both vivid and spellbinding. We are right there with Jim as “Ger, the manipulator” sneers at him for sleeping “in a mouldy sleeping bag and a child’s tent”, when he’s called “a poxy waster”, as he roots in bins for plastic bottles to return for cash, and when he’s offered fruit from a kind market trader.
We feel deeply for him when having tentatively approached his daughter ‘Chloe’ with a “Hi darlin’”, she responds with “You look like shit!”. He has “been sober for 10 years” after all and is “a good man”. Jim’s pain is our pain on discovering his beloved ‘Ma’ is in the hospice at Harold’s Cross. “It was you and me Ma, me and you.” But his visit to see her doesn’t go well. Old wounds weep. The appearance of wife Hailey in the hospital room “still beautiful, even with the scars”, provokes and enrages ‘the Voice’ in Jim’s head. “It’s all her fault.”
But how did he get here? How did it come to this? Curtains are hung on the scaffolding backdrop which had suggested the rise of new constructs in the city, and paper-like petals are scattered to carpet the floor. Roles reverse and Connolly takes on Devine’s mantle to portray a youthful Jim declaring undying love to Hailey in primary school. She is ‘Sandy’ to his ‘Danny’ (‘Grease’). At a teenage New Year’s Eve party, Hailey defends Jim’s virginal state to the bully taunting him – “the closest you ever got to a vagina (Steo) is when you crawled out of your Ma’s!” And that was it for Jim, “heaven and earth collided because she kissed me.”
The ensuing scenes of dramatic action and conflict are utterly compelling. You could hear a pin drop in the house. This is a powerful and cleverly scripted plot with an explosive twist which I won’t divulge here. Devine and Connolly are superb. Their sense of characterisation, movement and alignment, shifting seamlessly between a myriad array of roles, is remarkable. Jim, Ger, the Moore Street trader, Chloe, Tadgh, Tadgh’s girlfriend, Steo, Ma, Da, Hailey and Larry will live long in our memories.
In terms of direction, Ian Toner has guided and inspired a very successful collaboration between all the players including, among others, Migle Ryan on production with Cillian O’Donnell, Andrew Clancy and Sean Sweeny on lighting, set and sound design respectively.
Jigsaw showcases the harsh reality of one man’s gradual descent into drug addiction, the subsequent breakdown of his relationship and the violent act which causes him to become homeless. It is a harrowing and affecting but deeply rewarding experience. Go and see it if you can.
And as Jim’s Ma used to say, “always remember, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s what you do with your dancing shoes.”
Runs Until 24th May 2025.
