From a Low and Quiet Sea
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
★★★☆☆
For a novelist, Donal Ryan‘s name recognition is as good as it gets. The recipient of multiple awards and honours, he is practically a household name.
His popularity might be ascribed to his intergenerational perspective. Born in the late 1970s, he grew up in the pre-internet age, watching Charles Haughey and Garret FitzGerald exchange keys to the taoiseach’s office over the course of the 1980s. He came into maturity alongside the Celtic Tiger and witnessed the economy collapse – a breakdown matched only by the political erasure of the Catholic Church – in his 30s.
His style, characters and narratives bridge these generational divides: his focus is contemporary, taking in the breadth of global conflicts and social trends, yet his viewpoint is rooted in an era marked by religious dominance and political unrest on our island.
The Gaiety’s new adaptation of his fifth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, is an eloquent testament to Ryan’s ability to connect Ireland’s historical roots with its modern realities.
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The plot follows four people, each of whom is burdened by sadness, loss, alienation or violent trauma. We begin with John, an embittered older man who speaks about the ghost of his beloved brother; Farouk is a Syrian doctor with a wife and young daughter who plans to flee to the West; Lampy, a skittish young lad, is suffering from his first out-and-out heartbreak; Florence, Lampy’s mother, is trying to keep the peace between her son and father, all the while concealing a terrible loss that haunts her past.
This play, which is directed by Andrew Flynn, seeks to wear the trappings of its dramatic adaptation lightly: just as if you were reading the narrative on the page, characters walk on to the stage one by one, individually monologuing their thoughts and reminiscences and describing their role in the events of the present.
This spareness is echoed in the theatrical setting: the stage is bare except for a small bench the actors occasionally use and a background that changes colour.
It’s not clear that the gamble pays off. The performances of Aosaf Afzal, Eva Bartley, Denis Conway and Stephen O’Leary are all excellent, particularly O’Leary’s portrayal of Lampy. But a monologue lacks a dialogue’s potential for dynamism: there is no exchange, no tension or friction between two players. It can be hard to avoid a sense of flatness.
Ryan’s characters, who tell very different but ultimately connected stories, are all bearing witness to their trauma. The space for levity is minimal, and without another voice to take some weight from their reflections, the monologues inhabit an overly similar emotional frequency. The result, unfortunately, can seem somewhat repetitive.
From a Low and Quiet Sea is at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, until Saturday, May 3rd
