After the chaos and manic blood-letting of Criminal Genius, comes the dark, unflinching focus of Problem Child, the second in George F. Walker's six-part Suburban Motel series of plays. If anything, director Jackie Doyle and her largely unchanged cast are in even better form than previously, with Richard Dormer and Maria Connolly departing the realms of acting to penetrate the very beings of R.J. and Denise. He is a former jailbird, she a barely reformed junkie and hooker, and they are trying desperately to retrieve their baby daughter from the enforced care of the social services.
What wasted, desperate lives this seedy motel room has witnessed. The stained carpet may have been vacuumed and the cheap furniture given a quick going over by John Hewitt's pathetic, burnt-out caretaker Phillie, but the whiff of dirt-poor human existence, thrown out by the system and hanging on by its bitten-down fingernails, still lingers in the stale air.
While R.J. remains glued to and impassioned by the television agony shows, he scarcely notices the mental hell into which his wife is descending. Still, at least he has the wit to try to impress Kris Halpin's tight-lipped, sanctimonious social worker, while Denise makes no such effort, succeeding only in going on a binge which, as in Criminal Genius, ends in a violent and surreal climax. But through it all, the insistent tinkle of a baby mobile and the ever-present shabby carry cot, with its sadly jolly balloon, press home the ambiguously ironic agony implicit in the title of this gut-wrenching play.
Problem Child is at Belfast's Old Museum until January 29th (to book phone 02890-233332) then tours to the Riverside Theatre, Coleraine (February 2nd, 3rd), Hawk's Well Theatre, Sligo (February 4th, 5th), Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford (February 8th), Theatre Space at Henry Place, Dublin (February 9th-12th), Garage Theatre, Monaghan (February 15th), An Grianan Theatre, Letterkenny (February 16th, 17th) and Mullingar Arts Centre (February 18th, 19th)
