Dublin Carol ( Archived )

Reviews

newspaper reviews

(L to R) Brian Cox as John, Andrew Scott as Mark, Bronagh Gallagher as Mary

Production photography by Ivan Kyncl

Direction: Ian Rickson, Design: Rae Smith, Lighting: Paule Constable, Sound: Paul Arditti, Music: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Brian Cox, Bronagh Gallagher, Andrew Scott

BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE, THE TIMES, 24 FEBRUARY 2000

“Dublin Carol is set amid the dimly lit mix of doleful furniture and festive decorations that is Rae Smith’s idea of a Dublin undertaker’s office on Christmas Eve, and it is dominated by Brian Cox as the partly recovered alcoholic who is the ailing owner’s chief aide. At the Old Vic, some reviews were mixed, some critics complaining that they had spent 95 minutes being buttonholed by a pub bore. Well, my reaction to that is envy. They must frequent some truly extraordinary dives if they can deign to patronise a character with the storytelling skills and emotional intensity of Cox’s John Plunkett.

“The play consists of three duologues: John starting to unburden himself to a fresh-faced apprentice; John confronting the long-alienated daughter who has told him the wife he deserted is dying of cancer; John hawking up still uglier memories to the same boy. As in McPhersons The Weir, you get the feeling of people struggling against the personal histories that obsess, define and may yet destroy them; but the ending suggests there may also be life and hope in the House of Death. Moreover, the writing has the quality to allow Bronagh Gallagher’s pale, damaged Mary to give an excellent performance and for Cox to give a great one.

“With his pouchy white face peering out of the black overcoat covering his heavy, bunched body, he looks like a vast upended turtle; but the man himself is a thoroughly human mix of shame, pain, self-hatred, bewilderment, emptiness, anger, exhibitionism and the monstrous slyness that equips him to manipulate a mere boy into behaving as callously to women as he has done himself. Cox plus McPherson: isn’t that just the creative maths the new Court needs?”

MICHAEL BILLINGTON, THE GUARDIAN, 23 FEBRUARY 2000

“I found I appreciated Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol, which because of building delays was previewed in the Old Vic scene-dock, much more on a second viewing. This story initially struck me as narrower in scope than The Weir. I now feel I did the play less than justice.

“It would be too much to say that McPherson’s symbolically-named hero, John Plunkett, represents all Ireland; but he certainly embodies a large piece of it. Confronted one Christmas Eve by his estranged daughter and a boyish apprentice, he contains within him many of the traits of the Irish temper. He is weighed down by the guilt and sin of his Catholic upbringing yet he also displays a flickering religious optimism.

“And while he is deeply ashamed of his former alcoholic, family-running degrading, he is still capable of making a narrative of his own life. As in The Weir, McPherson implies that Ireland’s life is fuelled by memories, myths and a gregarious solitude and that the present is forever premeated by the invisible past. What Ian Rickson’s impressively still production and Brian Cox’s performance also bring out is McPherson’s bedt to O’Neill: the big father-daughter confrontation of the second scene is full of the emotional pain and unresolved guilt you find explored, at far greater length, in O’Neill’s family dramas. It is also beautifully played by Cox, and by Bronagh Gallagher as the daughter whose very presence is a form of accusation. But the great thing is that the Court is back with a new play that measures up to the occasion.”

SUSANNAH CLAPP, THE OBSERVER, 27 FEBRUARY 2000

“Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol is not, thank goodness, a style statement for the new theatre. It’s more unusual than that: a slow-burner with a sure touch. The play lacks the sweetness of some of McPherson’s work: there are passages which sink under the weight of melancholy. It needs patience; it comes and goes.

“As does its protagonist, an alcoholic who works in a funeral parlour. Brian Cox plays him with a lumbering grace: he’s a heavy sadsack whose sudden dainty gestures – tracing the curve of emotion in a sentence with his hand – give a glimpse of the life he might have led. As his interlocutors, Bronagh Gallagher – poised and in pain – and the shifting, adroit Andrew Scott are superb. Ian Rickson’s production is more intense and spookier than before. As the lights go down between scenes on Rae Smith’s set, the ghostly sigh of chimes is heard and an amber glow on the back wall makes the silhouettes of everyday objects look like the jagged battlements of a gothic castle. The familiar rumble of the Tube sounds like a tip-off from Hades.”