Harriet O'Carroll's A Bottle Of Smoke, given its premiere by Limerick's Island Theatre Company on Hallowe'en night, puts one in mind of a tale from the Grimm Brothers on one of their darker days.
It is based on a true Irish story, the burning to death of a woman, believed to be possessed by fairies, but its treatment here, both in the writing and the production, distances that primitive reality in favour of a fantasy that entertains but hardly informs.
The play opens with the body of Bridget being taken from her home and the arrival of her ghost to greet the men in her life as they return from the funeral. They are: her credulous husband Michael; his superstition-ridden friend, John; and her self-serving father. She drags them back through the events that led to her savage killing: the wedding; her failure to produce a child; the loneliness which led to solitary walks; the significance attached to her friendship with a stray horse.
The seed is planted by John; the body of Bridget has been taken over by a fairy. Too easily brainwashed, Michael and the father embark on a course of pagan cruelty ending in murder. The author, in a programme note, opines that horrible things happen, and one can't imagine how or why. But one can and this is surely the task of the creative writer. Here the analysis is superficial, largely residing in a small clutch of epilogues vying for the last word.
On the credit side, the writing has quality and carries the story effortlessly. The acting by Eileen Kennedy, Mairead Devlin, Cormac Costello, Myles Breen, J Anthony Murphy and Michael Scanlan is convincingly naturalistic and in harmony. Terry Devlin's direction and design strike the surrealistic tones apparently required by the script. Not one to curdle the blood, then, but not without its merits.
Until November 7th at Belltable; booking at 061- 319866. Extensive tour follows.