TwoO\u2019Connor\u2019s, Salthill\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n
Staged in the charmingly cluttered O\u2019Connor\u2019s<\/a> pub in Galway, Two, directed by Andrew Flynn, unfolds from behind the open-plan bar, the actors addressing us familiarly as regular customers. <\/p>\n They are the landlord and landlady, a married couple running a pub in northern England sometime in the 1980s. They hate each other passionately. \u201cYou\u2019ll be the death of me,\u201d he grumbles. \u201cIf only,\u201d she replies.<\/p>\n What follows is a succession of pub regulars, offering glimpses into the lives of the townspeople, all played by just the two actors, the brilliant Patrick Ryan and the wonderfully versatile Clelia Murphy<\/a>, who can switch from abject alcoholic lust to complicated maternal grief in an instant.<\/p>\n Jim Cartwright has structured his play as a series of compressed vignettes, each balancing bawdy tavern comedy with a truly bleak sense of just how badly ordinary life can turn out.<\/p>\n A woman cherishes her daily escape from the husband whose damaged body she tends; another patron tries to seduce every woman in the audience while ignoring the only woman who might reciprocate his interest: his poor girlfriend. Another couple show a genuinely chilling portrait of coercion. <\/p>\n The humour is earthy and often grotesque. Like the England of Patrick Hamilton, these are lives diminished by poverty and disappointment, made bearable only by jokes and drink.<\/p>\n The cumulative effect is unexpectedly moving. Beneath the barroom banter lies a deep, unresolved grief that finally surfaces in the play\u2019s closing revelation, accompanied by a haunting slow rendition of Take on Me. <\/p>\n The script slightly overstays its welcome: a handful of the vignettes could have been trimmed, and some could be cut altogether. Even so, Two remains a painful but very funny play, carried by the excellence of its actors.<\/p>\n