The Visiting Hour: Stephen Rea, a nursing home, the pandemic

THE VISITING HOUR

Online from the Gate Theatre, Dublin
★★★☆☆
The Gate Theatre has been dark for more than a year. With the premiere of The Visiting Hour, a new play by Frank McGuinness, the neglected auditorium is ablaze with light. From row S, just in front of the emergency exit, a camera points towards a lush red curtain, which serves as a backdrop, rather than a frame, to the proscenium stage.

A corridor of chandeliers illuminates the lone figure of a man in the distance. This is Father (Stephen Rea), a sad clown in a mismatched outfit that complements his mismatched memory and his ailing mind. With a shock of uncut curls and grizzly jowls, he looks dishevelled, neglected, confused. As the conditions for performance and the dramatic action are established (a reflective Perspex screen is screwed into the floor beside him), Daughter (Judith Roddy) enters.

The particularities of The Visiting Hour may be contemporary to our Covid crisis, but Frank McGuinness's story investigates a more universal theme: the indissoluble ties that bind human beings together

The setting for McGuinness’s short but meaningful work is a nursing home in pandemic times. In the empty theatre, however, it might well be purgatory. The voices of the actors echo through imposed distance across the stage, while formal announcements on the Tannoy system come with the sudden imperative of the voice of God. The concerns of the intergenerational dialogue have a metaphysical reach about them too. Father cannot remember much. Daughter cannot bear to remind him again. So their casual chat spins in a warped circle, as does McGuinness’s script. Who is Katie Boyle? What language do they speak in Luxembourg? What do we really know about either character other than that they love each other? That, it turns out, is enough.

Filmed for live streaming by Areaman, the camera makes fine use of both the expanse of space around the actors and the closeup function. The result is both distancing and intimate: the performances are deep and rich, but it is difficult to be moved. Director Caitriona McLaughlin, meanwhile, ensures the actors remain rooted in the repetitive reality of their shared encounter, but without losing our interest. The particularities of The Visiting Hour may be contemporary to our Covid crisis, but McGuinness’s story investigates a more universal theme: the indissoluble ties that bind human beings together.

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Runs until Saturday, April 24th