The Absence of Women

Synopsis

Gerry and Iggy, two labourers from Belfast face the end of their lives in a London hostel talking of the present and thinking of the past. They argue about who has the biggest liver, the names of tube stations and whether they should go back to Belfast or not. But where are the women in their lives? The Absence of Women is a funny and poignant play about the life journey of two ordinary and lonely Belfast men.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 15 September 2011

Two old Irish fellas from Belfast, Iggy and Gerry, are working on the roads in London and exchanging memories over large cups of coffee in the hostel they now call home.

The stage is bare save for a great pile of shovels across the front of it. Rachel O'Riordan’s production from the Lyric in Belfast is the opposite of arch or po-faced, but there is the bleakness of Beckett in the condition of men who belong nowhere and, like the tramps in Waiting for Godot, have only each other to blame for anything.

Somewhat schematically, each is revealed to have buried the past in failure and disappointment. In the case of Peter Gowen’s monumental, ruggedly handsome Gerry, his life hinged on the moment he turned down an English girl on the dance floor: [Alice O’Connell]’s Dotty emerges from the shadows to challenge his shyness.

Iggy’s social embarrassment was of a more complicated order, involving a background in boxing and taunts...

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Latest User Review

Anne - 7 October 2011:

Excllently acted, moving and truthful...

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