The Dry House, by Eugene O’Hare – Basement Theatre: 4-15 November
The Dry House is confronting. We’re greeted with a small suburban lounge, a house full of debris, a selection of empty bottles, and Alison Bruce with a bad case of the shakes.
And not for trivial reasons. As it transpires, her drinking might be the least of her problems. I can say without irony that after watching it, I certainly needed a drink.
“Death can come from this broken heart/ Or it can come from this bottle/
So why prolong the agony/ Hey, bartender, I think I’ll hit the throttle.”
(Dwight Yoakam)
There are of course several good reasons to drink, and many good reasons not to. Bruce needs to get to the Dry House to get straight. She has reasons for hitting the bottles, the cans, the cough medicine, her dead daughter’s perfume dispenser …reasons enough, as we quickly discover.
“I don’t have a drinking problem/’Less I can’t get a drink.” (Tom Waits)
Her sister (the thoroughly brilliant Beatriz Romilly) is desperate to help, so desperate she leans into enablement, yet has her own reasons for that desperation. She needs this, it turns out, as urgently as Bruce may want to avoid it.
“Listen to me butterfly, there’s only so much wine you can drink in one life/
But it will never be enough to save you from the bottom of your glass.”
(Christy Moore)
Did I mention a dead daughter? It’s not a spoiler—we do ‘meet’ her early on (in the person of the promising Zoe Crane). She too has secrets, about which we learn.
“Are you drinking to get maudlin/Or drinking to get numb?” (David McComb)
This is the third of celebrated playwright Eugene O’Hare’s works, premiering in London in 2023. There are any number of plays already about drinking—and any number of them are already written by Irishmen. So a new play on that trope needs to be convincing. Needs to bring more.
It turns out the “more” that we seek might be just a wee morsel of hope. Of a way out. But like all grieving, we need to reach the pit first.
“Goodbye to the port and brandy, to the vodka and the Stag /
To the Smithwick, and the Harp, and the bottle, draught and keg.”
(Christy Moore)
What O’Hare does do is bring together these three women, two superstars of the theatre and the newcomer who does more than hold her own, giving them material that is akin, as director Isla Macleod describes it, “to watching titans spar in a ring.”
They rise to it, so they do. The three working together are extraordinary. The ravaged Alison Bruce was so convincing I wanted to join her onstage to check she was all right. They are all magnificent. Her’s is a must-see performance. A star turn.
WARNING: Contains Coldplay!
Theatre Peter
The Dry House is at Basement Theatre 4-15 November.
