The Gift

Synopsis

When Belfast stranger Callum inherits a nearby farm, Ned looks forward to making friends with his new neighbour, only to find the other man is a reticent loner. Recently out of prison, Callum carries a burden of guilt: the terrorist act he committed for a cause in which he no longer believes. But as the drama unfolds, we discover he is not alone in harbouring a dark secret, for Ned has one of his own...

Our Review:

14 October 2009

There is a neat theatrical device at the heart of this world premiere by Eamon McDonnell – two neighbouring Irish farmers, Ned (Christopher Prior) and Callum (Phil Philmar), are haunted by the spirits of women in their past, neither of whom will let their men rest. At times one wonders whether it is the women or the men who are most alive, and that is presumably exactly how the writer wants it, for we are very much in the realms of lyrical Irish whimsy – there are various allusions to pixies and the spirits of the forest - but the whimsy comes with a dark undercurrent.

The opening scene between the grizzled Ned and his delicate young wife Brid (Georgina Bryce) is beautifully handled, and the twist, when it comes, is conveyed with satisfying subtlety. Would that the rest of the play were so economical. Sadly, the structure is so jumbled, and the precise nature of Callum's guilt so elusive for so long that it is hard to make dramatic sense of t...

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