The anniversary of the 1913 Lockout is relevant, insofar as the conditions that were the byproduct of the strike — frustrated men, despairing women, impoverished children — feel hauntingly familiar, one hundred years on. It seems to take The Risen People an incredibly long time to find its resonance with this fact, which may in part be down to the plethora of theatrical ideas that are attempting to render the production as something wholly new. It’s not so much that the themes are timeworn, but that the rhythms and characterisations are awfully familiar.

 

It can’t help but be so, given that James Plunkett’s masterpiece, Strumpet City, is very much along the same storylines as this work. The Risen People began its life, following the death of Big Jim Larkin, as performance vignettes written by Plunkett for Union meetings; in this incarnation, which is already an adaptation of something else entirely, it is neither here nor there, neither a music-hall revue or a straight play. Given such a provenance, the liberal use of music, via live performance of a collection of songs via Conor Linehan and Niwel Tsumbu and singing from the cast, seems like a natural conclusion at which to arrive, but it never quite achieves the state of a musical – a state which it may have realised, had the lyrics and tunes played an active part in progressing the narrative. 

 

As it is, the production moves from set piece to set piece, laying out the circumstances behind the Lockout and the consequences of it, stacking up facts and figures, over and over. Alyson Cummins’ precise, well-conceived set becomes more and more barren as the strike goes on and the populace pawns its belongings. Video projections abound, in the main projecting words and catch phrases on the upstage wall and the set, which don’t add to the forward motion of the piece, and in fact become rather distracting: when one starts wondering whether or not the chosen font is a modernisation of something germane, and if not, perhaps may have better been substituted by a typeface from the actual time period, it becomes worrying to have the mental space to muse about such things. 

 

Only when the piece settles itself into the rhythms of a play do we begin find the resonance with our times: Mrs Hennessy (Hilda Fay) taking on the local toughs (Lloyd Cooney, Keith Hanna) when they bully Mr Hennessy (Phelim Drew) out of the first job he’s had in years; feeling the frustration of those same lads, and the fear and powerlessness of Rashers Tierney (Joe Hanley) when faced with a member of the RIC (Simon Boyle). It takes quite a long time for us to even assign personalities to the characters, nor are we given much opportunity to know them beyond their symbolism — the whore (Kate Stanley Brennan)/mother (Charlotte McCurry) axis is still in evidence, in all its Plough-like glory, it seems. We revisit the same arguments, the same issues — will Fitzpatrick (Ian Lloyd Anderson) buckle under the pressure to give up his ideals, for example — time after time. As with the music, we don’t seem to be going anywhere, until suddenly the strike is over, and all the furniture is out of hock. 

 

The last number, with the cast hauntingly lit by Paul Keogan’s accomplished design, is stunningly effective, and wildly frustrating from a witness’ point of view. So simple, so straightforward, so direct, germane to the time, with lyrics by WB Yeats to music composed by Linehan: here was a clean, clear approach to a familiar tale, one that used material from the era to great effect, one that combined almost everything that the production sought to do, in an intimate and refreshing way. 

 

The impulse to mark the centenary with all manner of bells and whistles is surely a natural one, and to have given it any less may have been perceived to have been disrespectful; however, that last scene showed that even big moments can be distilled without being reduced, and be all the better for it.