Sir, I don't know how Fintan O'Toole can say that the language. in Marina Carr's play Portia Coughlan flows like a river. I found some of the dialogue surprisingly incongruous and sometimes completely alien to the character that spoke it.
The characters in this play are a tough, hardy bunch. They speak plainly. However, when Portia has a row with her mother she says something like "I know the topography of your mind, mamma". In another scene Portia's long time lover, smoking a fag and wearing his black leather jacket open to show us this hairy chest, describes somebody doing something regularly by saying "as was his wont."
This was not in keeping with how the characters were portrayed in the rest of the play. At times the language used was like the sea hitting the rocks and the spray came back and hit you in the face and you turn to your fellow theatre goer and say: "Did she really say that?" - Yours, etc.,
Sheraton Park,
Foylesprings,
Derry.