The Parting Glass

Axis, Ballymun

The Irish Everyman has a name, and it’s Eoin. As the protagonist of Dermot Bolger’s new play,

The Parting Glass

, he takes up where he left off in his previous appearance in Bolger’s

In High Germany

, which premiered in 1990.

After years of living in Hamburg with his wife Frieda and son Dieter, Eoin moves the family back to the ould sod, prompted by the need to be close to his ageing and ailing mother, and his patriotic nostalgia. Nevertheless, a tragedy occurs, and Eoin has to reinvent himself, how he lives his life and how he is as a father.

Over time, the iconic presence of the Irish football team follows him all the way through like a green-jerseyed, rather clumsy but always comforting and stabilising guardian angel. Football punctuates the important turning points in his life, brings him closer to his mates – including his son – and offers succour and release in bleak times. This becomes more and more necessary as not only tragedy but also the demise of the Celtic Tiger forces him to his knees.

The story and its elements are not unfamiliar, but their emotional genuineness makes them avoid cliché. Only rarely did the authenticity, verve and wit of this profound new work falter. Laddish on the surface, the play sensitively and perceptively used Eoin’s story – full of football, departures, homecomings and love – to present a densely-layered portrait of the Irish male in the Noughties. Bolger does this without the script’s becoming self-conscious and self-absorbed, maudlin, sentimental or superficial – a rare achievement.

Actor Ray Yeates delivers this monologue play with verve and excellent comic timing, punctuating pathos with wit, and vice versa. He summons up Hamburg, Ireland and Paris within the simplicity of a few rows of Dublin airport waiting lounge chairs – so recognisable and yet so indifferent, the interchangeable face of every airport. The play makes a variegated and eloquent comment on maleness, friendship and fatherhood, and every Eoin and his son should see it. Runs at Axis Ballymun until June 11.