Writer: Eoghan Quinn, adapted from J.M. Coetzee
Director: Annabelle Comyn
Don’t be put off The Jesus Trilogy if you’ve never read the J.M. Coetzee novels from which it was adapted by Eoghan Quinn, alongside director Annabelle Comyn – this reviewer certainly hadn’t, and found much to appreciate in the work. While it is easy to understand why Eileen Battersby in The Irish Times wrote that the trilogy’s first instalment “as a novel, lacks cohesion and conviction”, the sprawling ambition of the play, the beautiful staging, and the robust, truthful performances combined to forge a rich, probing evening in the theatre. Clocking in at 200-odd minutes with an interval, it sags in the middle of the second act, but there is almost always something delightful happening onstage.
Simon (Fergal McElherron) arrives in a strange city as a refugee, caring for a child, David, whom he hopes to return to his mother. The child is never embodied, is instead portrayed as an unknowable absence, but is voiced by Colin Campbell and Alexandra Conlon, both members of a chorus who play multiple roles. Little is known, or revealed, of this world, and so the audience has to accept this and go with it. The plot is episodic, with scenes including Simon’s workplace, his apartment, the house of the woman he decides is David’s mother, his new school, and, ultimately, a hospital.
Tom Piper’s set impressively fills the stage, a wooden container with sliding doors, with a platform placed in front during the second act. Lights (Stephen Dodd), Music and Sound Design (Philip Stewart), Choreography (Megan Kennedy), and Audio Visual Design (Michael Dunne) all combine to lend a beauty and vastness that is perhaps missing from the novel, with a deep, haunting soundscape the highlight. Comyn’s overall vision is both huge in scope and deeply personal in its attitude to the characters.
Perhaps the novels themselves limit this piece in its narrative thrust, and mean that it is inevitable that attention may lapse, and the layered abstractions of the script will grate; it would be disingenuous to suggest that this doesn’t apply to your reviewer. But The Jesus Trilogy makes up for it by being daring, by creating a magnificent performance out of three patchy novels, and by refusing to be hemmed in by any limitations. For this, the work deserves high praise.
Runs Until 19th October 2024.
The Review's Hub Score
Epic
