Inishfree might seem like a quaint Irish town, but fierce evangelist Thomas Magill knows better. He knows jovial Dwain Flynn is a miserable drunk, that Timmy O’Leary enslaves his lovely mother and that sweet Mrs Cleary is a blasphemous flirt.
It is down to Thomas, with God on his shoulder, to save this sinful place. But the townsfolk are not listening, an angel is misbehaving and a barking dog will not be silenced. Just how far will Thomas go in his quest for salvation?
‘The electrifying Cillian Murphy… Enda Walsh, one of the most fiercely individual voices in the theatre today… a seductive and terrifying portrait of a luminous madness that dares you not to look away.’ New York Times
Cillian Murphy – whose film work includes 28 Days Later, Breakfast on Pluto and Inception – is reunited with Enda Walsh for the first time following the phenomenally successful Disco Pigs. He returns to the London stage to play the population of an entire town in a tour-de-force solo performance of epic proportions.
The spell-binding Irish actor Cillian Murphy fills the Lyttelton stage – no mean feat in itself – with a fantastic, whirring monologue of small town life and flickering faith written and directed by Enda Walsh.
The two of them first collaborated on Disco Pigs, which ignited the Edinburgh Festival fifteen years ago, Murphy playing a raver on the spree in Cork city, or rather “Pork sity.” It was a blasted, bracing, bravado view of the underworld.
Now he’s Thomas Magill, an introverted loner on the isle of Inisfree (“I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree,” begins the great Yeats poem) clutching the memories and conversations of his parents – his mother’s on spools of tape, his father’s in the cemetery) – dishing the dirt, fighting with dogs, succumbing to cheesecake in Mrs Macleary’s café, writing it all down in his notebook.
[WOS_QU@TE]#This is a must-see performance by a superb artist#[/WOS_QU@TE]His theatre of dreams and nightmares is a disused factory, where the lights spark, the illuminated crosses recede in the distance, the air fills with the horrendous noise of a party at the community centre, the balloons float down with a packet of jammy dodgers.
As in all of Walsh’s plays, the world conjured is a vivid, slightly soiled one of Celtic under-achievers suffering the burden of a repressive social culture and their liberty from the historic weight of the Catholic church; Thomas has a fateful encounter with a beautiful girl, an angel, in the café that will lead him to… well, not paradise exactly.
The play dates from twelve years ago, prophetically imagining an Ireland in the wake of the bursting of the Celtic bubble. In that respect, Murphy’s Thomas is like driftwood on the sea, floating inexorably to oblivion, hitching his pants and scratching his beard, his eyes ablaze with the fierce fragments of experience.
Misterman is a ninety-minute rollercoaster, kaleidoscopic in mood and construction, a perfectly realised stage poem in which the athletic, technically prodigious Murphy achieves a sort of magical transfiguration on a wonderful grimy design by Jamie Vartan, with great lighting by Adam Silverman and a distant cacophony of voices supplied by Niall Buggy, Eileen Walsh (Murphy’s fellow Cork raver in Disco Pigs), Simone Kirby and Mikel Murphy.
As with Cate Blanchett in Big and Small at the Barbican, this is a must-see performance by a superb artist, every bit as compelling and extraordinary as that of Mark Rylance as Johnny Rooster in Jerusalem.
Agreed with the below average reviews, great actor working with poor script and literature - wonderful stage set mind. One man / woman shows are always amazing but the writing is critical for a 5 stars show. The audience were there for the actor and generally quite moved by the content. - ade
15 May 12
I think people are painting their own dreams and ideas on the play, without the play actually saying anything. Another odd choice from the National - James
15 May 12
I am still trying to come to terms with what I saw yesterday in the Lyttleton theatre - I am deeply moved, by the play and of course by the magnificent acting of Cillian Murphy! How he does it, beats me: this energy, magic, tenderness and brutality he brings to the role - one of the best acting performances I have ever seen.
Heart-rending stuff. deeply moving - what the play is about? It is about us, about our obsessions, our loneliness, the abuse we give and we get, about hopes and dreams and how they can get dashed to pieces. Illusions and what they do to us. Essential "condition humaine". - Regine Schöttge
11 May 12
Simply stunning. Both Cillian Murphy and the technical team should win awards for this. Murphy is mesmerising as the deeply disturbed Thomas Magill. He conjours up the folk of Innisfree via tape recordings and imitating them himself. He is a religious zealot appalled by their behaviour and devoted to his mother. A great exploration of mental illness, small town life and the dangers of religious fundamentalism. If it sounds bleak, there are many funny moments and beautiful poetry in Enda Walsh's language. - Karen G
11 May 12
Brilliant. I found myself completely lost in a small town in Ireland for the duration of the play. Immersed in the characters and the artistry of the set. Cillian's performance is compelling and not to be missed. An original piece of storytelling. Go and see it! - Jo
08 May 12
Nice set, but Cillian is a great actor left with a poor story and script. Really disappointed. - Andrew
02 May 12
Last night I described Enda Walsh’s play as ‘Beckett on acid’. It’s the story of Thomas Magill, a loner in Inisfree, sometime evangelist, who converses with characters from the village (and his dead parents!), all of whom are on tape or created by Thomas in conversations with himself. It’s a stage picture of an extraordinary character rather than a play, but it’s riveting.
Cillian Murphy’s tour de force really is something special. He occupies the vast Lyttleton space (which seems wider and is deeper than it has ever been) with an athleticism that is breathtaking. He runs, throws things and rants. He is accompanied by all manner of sounds and lights with the stage a performer itself (this is virtuoso technical staging). You can’t take your eyes off him, dripping in sweat, inhabiting his character like you rarely see.
I’m not one for monologues, but this is an exception as it doesn’t conform to the static stereotype. It’s a thrillingly dramatic 90 minutes which you’d be mad to miss. - Gareth James
02 May 12
This is easily the least enjoyable ninety-five minutes I have spent in a theatre in 2012. Cillian Murphy, some OTT object hurling aside, tries hard with the material available, but, by the end, Thomas Magill wasn't the only one with violence on his mind, as I was feeling severely ill-disposed towards Enda Walsh for putting me through such unengaging tedium. What drives humans to mental illness and psychopathic behaviour ought to be a fascinating subject to explore, but Walsh manages to pull off the trick of dehumanising his character to the extent that there is nothing left to relate to. There is simply no connection with Thomas Magill and one just does not care how or why he has arrived at this juncture. Such narrative as there is, told through recollections, recordings and hallucinations, is revealed at a painfully slow pace. The significance of some of the seemingly random lighting cues also had me perplexed. It's rare I believe a play merits five stars; even rarer that those involved deserve the castigation of a single star, but I have no hesitation in bestowing that "honour" on Misterman. - Martin Barber
24 Apr 12
Great performance from Cillian Murphy but took a while to tune in to the play, not helped by the fact that on the night I attended, a section of the audience were laughing uproariously at a number of the lines early on which I am not sure were intended to be that funny.
The later stages of the play build up to a powerful climax and overall the play was well worth watching-not sure I agree, however, that the performance was on a par with Rylance's Rooster! - DCH
23 Apr 12
Brilliant acting and performance, with Cillian proving what a great actor he is, but a terrible play - I was not alone in leaving the theatre wondering what on earth that had all been about. Great set. - playsareus
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