Triptych

Synopsis

A wife, a mistress and a daughter circumnavigate a husband, a lover and a father in a poignant study of love and obsession. Triptych is a lyrical portrait of man seen through the eyes of his three women, seamlessly exploring sex, marriage and damaged relationships where love can both liberate and entrap.

Our Review:

14 April 2008

Edna O'Brien’s play is like another cuntry; women certainly do things differently there. Triptych presents “a lyrical portrait of a man seen through the eyes of his three women”, namely Wife, Mistress and Daughter. Or, rather, not namely at all. While they have character names the programme lists only their male function. A play in 2008 that shows talented, rational, successful women as purely defined by The Man In Their Lives leaves itself with little to say.

The narrative charts, with some temporal confusion, the events and effects of an affair. The Man, Henry, remains unseen leaving the women to writhe, spout narration and clunky imagistic streams of consciousness, change shoes at every lighting cue (how many pairs of wedges can a mistress want?) and refer to their “cunts” and to doctors “sticking fingers up” them with tedious self-congratulation.

As Wife, Pauline, Terry Norton presents a drunken neurotic female in a manner that robs the...

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Latest User Review

Tim - 15 April 2008:

Really loved it,Orla Brady was great,such a sexy and fascinating actress,the 85 mins flew by and booked to see it again!...

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