Not to be confused with the Sartrean notion of playing out a role of inauthentic being, the bad faith of the title of this production by a new Irish company has more to do with flawed religious belief and its psychological trappings, as well as the folly of trusting too much in personal figures of authority. In a monologue powerfully and impressively delivered by Ben Mulhern, Bad Faith takes us through a series of pivotal and retrospectively epiphanic snapshots of the life of a young man by the name of Gerard Boylan.

Gerard has returned home for his father’s funeral. It’s the night before the burial and, aided by a bottle of whiskey in his old bedroom, he trawls through his memories in confessional form before the audience. The props are telling. There’s a guitar, some board games, a suitcase beneath the bed - it’s only going to be a brief stay. Boxes marked “winter clothes” - aka the presence of mother - are also visible. As recollections of times past come back to haunt him, Gerard seethes with anger, regret and frustration.

In open-necked shirt and black trousers, Mulhern faces and at all times addresses the audience directly as the ear of his conscience. The compact, enclosed space of the Teacher’s Club is a perfect secular confession box; the audience bears witness. We hear of a well-respected father who was a garda and gaelic football coach but who plagued Gerard all his teen life because he didn’t live up to his father’s ambitions for his son. Gerard is no good at football and, instead of studying, he smokes pot all night in his room. Following a psychotic episode on weed Gerard is introduced to a good-looking female therapist.

The relationship with the female therapist takes an unexpected turn when she seduces the teenage Gerald. The suggestion is that at the time Gerald didn’t know exactly what had happened to him but that now it would appear he was taken advantage of, exploited sexually by this older woman in a reversal of the usual male exploiting young girl scenario.

Thanks to the open stage design which sees all the clutter of the room at the back behind our monologuist, the audience feels it is right there in the bedroom and consequently inside Gerard Boylan’s head. Noel McCarthy’s direction is sharp, focussed and brings to bear all the intensity of the at times comic and at other times tragic memories. McCarthy’s direction and Mulhern’s acting catch perfectly the awkwardness and isolation of a male teenager, and of the man who has not yet escaped from those pitfalls.

O.J. Ryan’s script is honed, fighting fit and pertinent. There’s a concreteness and a down-to-earth reality to the writing. Bad Faith doesn’t attempt to say everything about one individual’s life. Nevertheless, there is an unresolvedness about the many narrative threads that makes one feel that this collection of snapshots might have been better served if one or two had been developed with an even deeper focus. A telling of present consequences for past transgressions against him would have added an extra essential dimension to what is already a captivating portrait of a life adrift.

Patrick Brennan was chief theatre critic and arts writer with the Irish Examiner from 1990-2004. He is currently writing a book on the theatre of Tom Murphy.