One has the sense no-one on stage knows how it will begin, until it begins. What will fill the middle. Will it be a soft centre, or something hard and brittle? How, or when, it will end. This is the rugged beauty of it. It's all about the journey.
Before you can say “Melrose Place on acid”, things spin out into the absurd, as characters move in and out of dreams and fantasies, mingling memory and reality.
A gifted embroider of words, Friel combines soft lyricism and hard meaning in his play, a tragical comical historical pastoral on a spree and spoiling for a spirited spar.
In the care of Pinchgut Opera’s director, Erin Helyard, this music, formulaic as it indeed is in some respects, sprang off the page into an experience rich in emotions.
Iolanthe and Janet Anderson work in cosmic, comedic accord, characterisation charismatic, timing impeccable, delivery precise, together a tour de force that ascends the cliché.
Blind faith and rational belief are always sparring partners in dramatic conflict and so it is here with the power play tinged with superstition and salaciousness.