The Brightening Air

There’s a lot going on in this new play at the Old Vic set in 1980s rural Ireland, but at its heart it’s a family drama, with pretty strong Uncle Vanya vibes.  We had side seats up in the balcony which meant we lost a bit of the stage but overall I don’t think we missed that much.  

Focused on three siblings, Dermot (Chris O'Dowd) Stephen (Brian Gleeson)  and Billie (Rosie Sheehy).  Stephen and Billie are still living in the run down family farm after their father's death.  Billie loves trains and is an expert on train lines, stations and routes and it becomes clear she can’t manage on her own and Stephen is responsible for looking after her.   Older brother Dermot is a bit sleazy and flashy but he is the one that got out of town. His wife still loves him but he brings his young girlfriend, Freya ‘she’s 20 or will be at her next birthday’.  We meet the final members of the family as they gather in the house for a family meeting.  They include Dermot's estranged wife, their elderly uncle who is a former priest, and his housekeeper who has some sort of unfulfilled relationship with Stephen.  The final person in this complicated family mix is the sweet and slightly simple farmhand who is making unrequited cow eyes at Billie.  The whole of the first half of this play is taken up with establishing these relationships and letting the bickering unfold, and it’s funny and entertaining with lots of mini tragedies rumbling away, but it doesn’t really go anywhere much. 

In the second half there is a bomb dropped in the middle, and the rest of the play is about the repercussions.  I felt for Billie in the end, still dreaming of getting to India on the train.  In the first half I was a bit confused about the Indian references but had a bit of an aha moment when I realised that India represents escape for Billie. There are some lovely lyrical monologues, and some musical elements woven in, all of which are very beautiful although they were sometimes hard to reconcile with the family drama going on. 

 Apart from the Irish accents I had to work quite hard to understand why this was placed in 1980s Ireland, but thinking about it, this is set in the decade that Ireland begins the early stages of its economic transformation inside the EU, and although the troubles are still ongoing and will be for quite a while longer, there is the beginning of looking outward from being such an insular society.  So maybe Dermot represents the brash future a bit, and the priest turns out to be a somewhat problematic character too, I am assuming to reference some of the issues with the catholic church in Ireland. In that way we can see that the men all head out into the world, but the women largely remain stuck behind, particularly Billie, whose dreams remain just that.  Just to add to all of that, there’s also hints of magic too, with Freya being compared to a sprite or witch, we have magical water as a love potion, and there's a miraculous regaining of sight. 

The performances were great, as were individual elements, but overall there was so much going on it didn't really coalesce for me into a coherent whole.