The Goddess of Liberty

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Isolated by geography, bitterly divided but begrudgingly loyal, nursing memories of plenty while burdened with impossible debts – the central characters in Karen Ardiff’s new play for Gúna Nua and The Civic Theatre are markedly Irish. But the boom-to-bust narrative of The Goddess of Liberty harkens back to another time and place, where the gold rush of 1890s Alaska has inevitably slowed and three women sift through the nuggets of its spent promise.

The bare wood of Maree Kearns’s impressively realised set refer as much to the impermanence of frontier towns as theatrical floorboards, a fitting location for Frances (Geraldine Plunkett), a former starlet of great renown, now incapacitated by a stroke. Attended by May (Máire Ní Ghráinne), another Irish immigrant whom she rescued from destitution long ago, Frances is the household’s only hope for delivery. Conned into putting their money into a theatre, their investment will only be returned when Frances repeats a famed dance (as Hermione from

The Winter’s Tale

) within a lace-covered replica of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a mystifyingly ornate plot, and, much like the dismal news that May’s daughter, T-Belle (Emma Colohan), brings from the Chilkoot Pass, it seems an unlikely prospect.

Ardiff has designed an elaborate story, embroidered with rich historical detail and featuring substantial female roles, but the play is overburdened with motifs. The theatre here functions as a capacious metaphor – everyone is engaged in some level of performance or swindle, whether it’s Megan Riordan’s enjoyably cynical prostitute Nellie the Pig, or the murky details of Frankie’s illicit past on the “fringes” of theatre – yet the ideas seem concertinaed into the confines of a play. Ardiff, an actor and an author, initially plotted it as a novel – and it shows. With each perspective given equal priority, every character speaks in lengthy, uninterrupted monologues, mainly to the incommunicative Frankie, while Plunkett delivers her character’s history in elliptical, descriptive flashbacks.

Sound designer Carl Kennedy makes neat accommodations for those changes in register, such as the submerged acoustic for one of Frankie’s liquid reminiscences, but Paul Mead’s elegant direction seems to be compensating for an unwieldy play. As a consequence, we get needlessly elaborate exposition then abrupt offstage conclusions. This juddering momentum leaves Ardiff’s more delicate ideas about exoticism and eroticism feeling clunky, expressed in the meaningful gaze of an offstage Native American or May’s equivocal glances.

Much to its credit, the production never forces a boom-bust economic allegory nor settles for a facile narrative.

Instead, it seems hesitant to rein in its focus and discard any bright details of production or text. A contemporary dramaturg or a 19th-century prospector might have offered the same advice: all that glitters is not gold.

Runs until Feb 18, then at Civic Theatre, Dublin Feb 21-25, and The Belltable, Limerick Feb 29-Mar 3