Freefall
This sad, sad play from Michael West and the Corn Exchange in Dublin,
is about collapse, disintegration, child abuse… you know the sort of
thing, cheery stuff.
If it weren’t so attractively performed in Annie Ryan’s production it
would be unbearable. And some of the scenes, vivaciously played by a
cast of six, identified in the programme text not by character name
but, irritatingly, by A, B, C, etc.
This indicates how the play was evolved, ticking all those boxes and
manufacturing the scenes between people: as A (Andrew Bennett), goes
into meltdown in his pyjamas, at one point lying on a dinner table
while his wife and guests pick at his bones.
Maybe it’s all an Irish metaphor, charting the muzzling of the Celtic
Tiger, the demise of the Catholic Church. Or is it just a play about an
unlucky bloke who gets depressed? The thing about depression in the
theatre is that sometimes it’s catching.
