Lovers - the very word may be whispered, muttered, shouted from the rooftops, spat out; it may express passion, wistfulness, disgust, irony. Brian Friel's 32-year-old play offers ample possibility for the existence of all these nuances - and many more besides. Even in those early days, his theatrical daring brooked few bounds; and so, what if this is a play of two halves, neither of which, by right and tradition, should come anywhere near to fitting together?
In the first play, Winners, two teenagers meet on the hillside above their town, to revise for their final exams and plan their shotgun wedding in three weeks' time. While vivid word pictures emerge through the energy of their whirlwind daydreams, two narrators are simultaneously providing a dry, factual account of the other events of that fateful day, as time slips by and the future overtakes the present.
In the second play, Losers, the style and setting shift into more traditional mode, as two middle-aged lovers are also robbed of a happy marriage, but this time by the combined forces of religion, filial duty and a domineering, bed-ridden mother.
Eimear Hughes and Richard Clements work tremendously hard as the young couple, at times over-compensating for the less assured efforts of John Hewitt and Susie Kelly - both infinitely more experienced actors, yet uneasy in the narrator roles. But Hewitt's performance takes an enormous upward leap in the sadly-titled Losers, slipping gleefully into the double entendres of Friel's slyly poetic courting ritual.
As yet, Zoe Seaton's Big Telly production is missing some crucial dramatic moments, but on its tour around Ireland what will always emerge triumphant at the end of the evening is the play itself.
Tours to Antrim, Portaferry, Lisburn, Galway (March 18th20th), Old Museum, Belfast (March 22nd-27th); then does a second tour from May 1st, visiting Enniskillen, Tallaght (May 3rd-8th), Mullingar, Newtown- abbey, Larne and Andrew's Lane Theatre, Dublin (May 31st to June 12th).