Tom (Howley) and Vera (Ní Mhurchú) are one man’s everyman, another’s Adam and Eve. In Desperate Optimists performance about the fallout of Ireland’s financial crisis, the stage is set for them to hatch a plan to take back the money they think they deserve. As they state explicitly at the outset, they are here to rob a bank. This is their rehearsal.

In a clearing in the woods, the couple age themselves with clothes and make-up, and run through their lines and courses of action. They tell each other that they are justified in what they are about to do, that they are focused, determined, ‘the opposite to complacent.’ Their money is gone, their pensions depleted, this is for their children. ‘Implacable’ becomes a kind of mantra; the touchstone around which they build their characters and frame their actions.

Although the robbery is imminent, the pair are repeatedly distracted by the burden of planning, and the pressure to maintain roles and remember lines. With the set surrounded by numerous large lighting screens, it feels like we might also be watching the recording of a film, so that the performance would have us consider a connection between the act of creative production and the bank robbery itself. But although this ‘meta’ conceit is asserted throughout, if feels far from convincingly elaborated. It’s not used to animate the subject matter to any degree, nor to comment clearly on the act of theatre-making itself.

The link between creativity and destruction is also suggested by Dominique Brennan’s beautiful, meticulously designed set, which is presented as a kind of Eden, filled with trees and wildlife, including a taxidermy fox and a bird to which the pair regularly speak. The couple try to have sex, but can’t, and Tom even eats a berry which makes him sick. If this is Genesis, it’s struggling to take off. 

The juxtaposition of the exposed film set, the creative crisis, unresolved sexual tensions and the imposing natural world seems to have more in common with a Lars Von Trier film than the postdramatic, compounded by references to opera (Tristan and Isolde), a swelling score, and Janyce Condon’s unexpected aria front of stage. 

While these are among the many interesting conceptual threads suggested by the work, the theatrical rewards are fewer. The dialogue feels very laboured, with lots of exposition, much of which is reiterated, as they pair repeatedly announce what they are going to do, and explain why.  ‘Remember how upset we were when our money was stolen,’ Vera says at one point, as if anyone hadn’t picked up on it. ‘We are just two ordinary people who did nothing wrong,’ Tom stresses, unnecessarily.  These interactions could have been composed from Liveline transcripts, but the production’s not knowing enough to do take this material further. Are they playing with the almost clichéd? Or just reproducing the same ideas? At best the exchanges drag; at worst they feel like underdeveloped writing or weary naturalism. 

In a similar vein there are moments were the performance wants us to laugh at the situation as absurd, but again, these occasions aren’t developed or clearly signalled enough, so the tone is unclear.

Tom and Vera may know what they want, but it’s hard to figure out what exactly the production wants: for itself, or from us.

Star rating: ★★