Writer And Director- Áine Ryan
Paddy sits quietly on stage, reading a guidebook to the Middle East. He does the same an hour and ten minutes later, but with a very different worldview. In between is Áine Ryan’s too open-ended but fascinating look at the capacity of travel to expand and shrink our horizons, to release us from grief and to highlight what is wrong at home—and abroad.
Our central character is middle-aged Paddy (Brendan Dunlea), an unhappy married man going on endless package tours with a sex-obsessed wife and nursing a private, yet all-too-public, grief. Arriving in Petra, he begins to undergo a transformation, embarking on an “affair” with the city and its people, and re-evaluating the life he’s left behind. Eventually, Paddy has to come back to real life—but at what cost to himself?
Dunlea imbues Paddy with warmth and has irrepressible storytelling skills, perhaps most notably demonstrated in the fact that an audience member began responding to Paddy as if he were a real person (Dunlea dealt with it admirably, again demonstrating his skill). Commanding the small Brockley Jack Stage, his performance feels intimate but engaged with the world Paddy is experiencing. He also weaves through the at-first confusing chronology with ease, whilst marshalling the audience’s sympathy and being utterly hilarious, often within the same sentence. Dunlea also does a fantastic job of embodying all characters, from his Bedouin friends to his catty wife, whilst always allowing Paddy’s opinion of them to come through. It is in short an almost perfect solo-show performance.
Near perfection is also found in Ryan’s script. Exceptionally funny and occasionally heart-breaking, it (based on Ryan’s own trip to Petra in 2018) feels both personal and universal in its examinations of grief, marriage and the implications of travel. As one would hope in a play about a passion for travel, Paddy’s world feels detailed—also due to the excellent and evocative set design of Constance Comparot— and its characters help us to feel the difference between open, welcoming Jordan and the seemingly confined Ireland.
Ryan also creates a detailed portrait of the contrasting attitudes between the people of the two countries and Paddy’s attempts to find his way between them—and his ultimate inability to escape the grief and community at home. There are a few slightly misjudged elements—in particular jokes about fake tan and a touch of ‘gay panic’—but they are all excusable in Paddy’s voice, which reveals the nervous vulnerability beneath the dodgy jokes. The ending, despite having a lovely circular image, has an unfinished quality, as scenes that would seem to round off the show are instead followed by yet another one, and there is no sense of resolution for either characters or playwright. Is this meant to demonstrate Paddy’s unfinished business with both his grief and Petra? Perhaps, but it also leaves the audience unsure of quite where they’ve ended up.
It is difficult to stand out on a fringe circuit suffused with solo shows. What Ryan and Dunlea have carved out as writer/director and performer is a niche all of their own. Paddy Goes To Petra is a perfectly judged slice of theatrical power: moving, funny, eye-opening and consistently engaging. With such an assured script in the hands of a masterful performer, the audience can’t help but feel transported.
Runs until 5 November 2022