Adam Sollis, Ariadne Sgouros, Raj Labade and Emma Diaz get into the Christmas spirit. Photo: Brett Boardman
‘We live in peace if not harmony,’ said the city guide showing me around Belfast last year. It’s a statement that has stayed with me as I think about the divides in Northern Ireland and remember the clusters of Union Jacks flying high in one district, before turning a corner to kerbs and buildings painted green, yellow and orange. Those images, and many more besides, came flooding back to me when watching Grace Chapple’s clever and absorbing Never Closer, which is set in Co Tyrone, one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. But this play is not set in the present day, it begins in the 1970s and the Troubles are raging.
It starts playfully. In her family home, Deirdre (Emma Diaz) is entertaining (or horrifying) her friends Mary (Ariadne Sgouros), Jimmy (Raj Labade), Conor (Adam Sollis) and Niamh (Mabel Li) with a ghost story. Could the ghost, they wonder, be the shade of the poor girl who died in that accident just before her wedding day? A throwaway remark as to whether it actually was an accident is not investigated. Like most people who live in places of places of conflict and could have their lives upended at any moment by bombs and bullets, Deirdre and her friends prefer to shut out that possibility. Except bombs are part of everyday life in their bit of Northern Ireland, and it is a bomb near the border that ends this scene. Niamh, Jimmy and Mary run back to their homes while Conor goes to investigate what has happened.
Time moves on. The five are still friends and still united by their hatred of Brits. But Niamh stuns everyone by declaring she is moving to London to study medicine. The others stay put; Deirdre becomes a teacher, Jimmy has given up his dreams of being a musician to look after the family farm; Mary, the usual life and soul of the party (and pourer of the whiskey), remains restless; and Conor does whatever Conor does and maintains his rage.
And so we come to Christmas Eve in 1987. Filial duty has kept Deirdre in the family home until her parents’ deaths but she remains stuck, between political arguments, faiths, nations and the lives she could live. She has drifted into a relationship with Conor, and is blindsided when her best friend Mary tells her she is going to live in New York. Jimmy arrives and says he, too, may move away and then Niamh turns up unexpectedly, and introduces her fiancé Harry (Philip Lynch). Who is a Brit, and a Crown prosecutor, and definitely not a Catholic. The tensions that lie beneath the surface are suddenly ignited and it’s game on. Opinions that have lain dormant are suddenly shouted, dangerous prejudices are aired, and much whiskey is consumed as Harry finds himself the object of hatred and suspicion. Niamh, of course, is tainted by association (and her now posh British accent). How to retain friendships in this situation? Can one forgive and/or forget?
This play debuted in Belvoir’s 25a and was, with good reason, such a success that it has now moved up to the main stage. The six actors, directed by Hannah Goodwin, inhabit their six distinct characters totally. Their performances are perfect, keeping us on the edge of our seats in a show that runs for one hour, forty minutes without a break. The anticipation builds perfectly.
The action takes place in one room in Deirdre’s home, all dreary shades of brown and ochre, and Grace Deacon’s set is dimly lit (by Phoebe Pilcher), adding to the claustrophobia of the time. Ghosts, real and imagined, are part of these people’s lives. Do they fight these demons or flee? Ignore or condone?
For all the underlying seriousness and horror of the Troubles, Chapple’s dialogue never descends into diatribe and even gives us some laugh-out-loud moments (Harry, for example, is declared an ‘awful reminder of 800 years of occupation’.) The drama here is both personal and universal. Never Closer is a compelling piece of theatre. A must-see.
Until 16 June
Tickets: $59-$100, plus booking fee
More: https://belvoir.com.au/productions/never-closer-2024/ or (02) 9699 3444
