Review – Gates Of Gold
Date Reviewed: 25th March, 2009
Venue: The Library Theatre
Performed in an uninterrupted 90 minutes, Frank McGuinness‘s play, Gates of Gold, grabs your attention with its opening lines and takes you on a wonderfully tragi-comic journey with a relentless ease.
The play tells the story of ageing Irish actor, Gabriel, in his dying days, tended to by his new nurse, Alma, and with his partner and director, Conrad, supporting him. The story explores the history of the relationship between the two men, as both colleagues and lovers, in a time when homosexuality was still illegal. In counterpoint it presents Alma’s own story, and introduces the idiosyncrasies of Gabriel’s sister Kassie and her son Ryan.
Oliver Cotton is utterly captivating as the inveterate liar, Gabriel, who is witty, charming and paradoxically honest, even as he moves gradually closer to death. Caitlin Mottram, as Alma, is more than a match for him and the banter between the two sparkles across the stage. In contrast, Ian Barritt’s Conrad is a rock, Gabriel’s stalwart, with the heart of a truly romantic man underneath the seemingly dour exterior. Marty Cruickshank plays Kassie, the eccentric sister, with verve and Patrick Knowles, as her alternately scheming and vulnerable son, provides a note of cynicism which prevents the play from becoming cloying.
The stage at the Library is cleverly split, with the front portion as the sitting room and the back section as Gabriel’s bedroom. This provides the opportunity for two, seemingly separate scenes, to be acted out in the two locations at the same time, the dialogue mixing and creating new meanings as it intersects. Diego Pitrarch’s design work has created a rich setting full of the history of lives lived, and Rachel O’Riordan‘s dynamic direction brings energy and vitalityto the piece.
This is truly an excellent piece of theatre. Not a word or motion is wasted. At the end of the short running time you are sad to leave these quirky characters. This is yet another stand-out production from the Library Theatre, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
An absolute must-see!
-Calum Kerr