The Absence of Women

JANE COYLEwas at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast to freview the Absence of Women

You can take the man out of Belfast but you can't take Belfast out of the man. Iggy and Gerry are two living examples of that truism. They may have left home in their youth, but it remains the thing that defines them.

After years of living the hard life digging motorways, sewers and subways, moving between cheap boarding houses and hostels, their respective impressions of their native city are entirely different. To sweet-faced, soft spoken Gerry (Karl Johnson) it's Jerusalem. He longs to go back, to walk the familiar streets and have one last drink in a favourite watering hole. Bluff, talkative Iggy (Ian McElhinney) thinks it a dirty kip, a place he wouldn't touch with a barge pole. But he can't bring himself to share the painful reason for his aversion, even with his old pal and long-time drinking partner. In Owen McCafferty's penetrating new play – arguably his best to date – we encounter the two deep into their daily routine in a London refuge, seated at a shabby table beside a steaming urn, swigging mugs of tea as a substitute for the endless pints they have downed over the years. They squabble and disagree about Underground stops, the size and state of their respective livers, roads they have dug, pubs they have drunk in and . . . Belfast.

Rachel O'Riordan directs with an ingrained sense of vision and musicality, coaxing every nuance of truth and illusion out of Johnson and McElhinney's beautifully crafted performances. In lives devoid of warmth, home comforts and love, each has had his moment. McCafferty throws a contrasting switch on to Gerry's brief, tongue-tied encounter with a lovely girl (Alice O'Connell), who once asked him to dance, then on to Iggy's terrible gaffe with a swaggering young man (Conor MacNeill) in a boxing gym. If Belfast has taught them anything, it is to say nothing and both are acutely aware that they have done a lot of talking in their lives while saying very little. As the need for human contact becomes overwhelming, they forsake words and come together in a bizarrely touching embrace. Finally, it is left to the light, feathery brilliance of Johnson to tough life out, alone, delusional and evoking memories and mind pictures too sad to contemplate.

Runs until Feb 27, then tours to Coleraine, Strabane, Downpatrick, Armagh, Newry, Omagh and Lisburn.