NOMAD and Livin’ Dred, fresh from their successful run of The Dead School at The Dublin Theatre Festival, present their interpretation of Frank McGuinness’s iconic play Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme throughout their midland home base. It is a glorious fluorescent production that encapsulates the yearning, the haunting, the dreams and the nightmares of each of its eight protagonists with fervour and vigour; the power and poetry of McGuiness’ language as it see-saws between love and hate, tunnelling through hope (little hope) and anguish with laughter and tears, is brought to fulfilment by director Padraic McIntyre and cast.
The action on the stage is framed by the swan song of Kenneth Pyper (Ian McElhinney) the only survivor of the eight men from the 36th Ulster Division, recalling the loss of his comrades and in particular the young blacksmith Craig, with whom he had fallen in love. McElhinney gives an impassioned oratorical performance as the disaffected older, upper crust Protestant somewhat mellowed by age but still ruminating in the self-loathing and anger of his younger self as he rages against a God who could preside over such terrible atrocities.
Maree Kearn’s impressive set design is of a Masonic facade behind a platform that serves as the makeshift soldiers’ bunker with a mezzanine inset providing for a silhouetted representation of Pyper’s ghosts ahead of their appearance in the main body of the play. The clever design enables the intricate scene changes, from the bunker to the home leave episode to the Battle of the Boyne re-staging by the men, where they squat on each other's shoulders as King William and King James, to a tense and tender vista of two soldiers on a rope bridge one encouraging the other to cross.
Marty Rea’s younger, half-mad effeminate Pyper - and the catalyst for much of the interaction between the men - is a fully realised portrayal of the ‘black sheep’ of the Ascendancy, who provokes and baffles his working class comrades with ludicrous flamboyant stories of his travels and his existential observations. Rea exquisitely captures the class and camp poise of Pyper and his complicated unhappy artistic nature. Pyper’s outbursts and frequent clashes with his comrades are vehicles for the illumination of the futility of war and also elicit the varying levels of commitment each man has to the cause.
The Belfast boors McIlwaine and Anderson, played by Ian Lloyd Anderson and Diarmaid Murtagh, give discomfiting authenticity to the play’s invective against “filthy taigs,” as they brandish McGuinness’ anti-Fenian language with compelling brutish vengeance.
Millen (Rory Nolan) and Moore (John Cronin), the country boys from Coleraine, are the easy-going malleable pair of the octet. Both give convincing performances, particularly Cronin as a half-vacant likeable and gullible young volunteer who pulls humour out of all situations. Along with Pyper, Crawford whose timidity is well deployed by Ciaran O’Brien, is the outsider at the other end of the social fulcrum and he finds unlikely comradeship in Karl Quinn’s fabulously played tortured preacher, Roulston. Simon Boyle plays Craig, the boy who could be every man’s friend, and is drawn inexplicably to Pyper. Craig is central to the play - we hear about him in Pyper’s opening soliloquy - but Boyle’s performance resonates less an authentic realisation of character than the others.
Eamon Fox’s lighting complements the sombre grey set illuminating the stage in muted colours and, particularly in the opening scene, it is tamed beautifully to illustrate the silhouetted ghosts on the upper balustrade.
A tight production that serves McGuinness’ play well; it reaffirms the Nomad / Livin’ Dred partnership as a tour de force to be reckoned with.
Breda Shannon is a freelance writer and reviews books for The Irish Examiner.