THEATRE REVIEW: The Weir ★★★

The Weir

Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham

Saturday 30th September 2017

Now in it’s 20th year after debuting at The Royal Court in 1997, Conor McPherson’s The Weir, which won Best New Play at The Oliviers in 1999, is centered around one evening where the local folk of an Irish village indulge in ghost stories of their past whilst drinking in the derelict pub. I was initially intrigued by this show a couple of years back with the praise given by my Irish lecturer from university, and I can mostly see after watching this performance where he was coming from!

The production started off beautifully with what felt like a journey through light as the sequence spilled across the pub setting before Jack (Sean Murray) entered the stage and was hypnotising as we watched on in silence for around three minutes as we watched him bring the pub to life, making us laugh but all together helping himself to a bottle of guinness. He had so much presence on stage right from the beginning and that did not slow down from him or any of his other performers, especially Natalie Radmall-Quirke whose portrayal of Valerie was gripping, especially in her personal story about her daughter.

I do believe though that the opinion of how to experience this production though really falls into where abouts you position yourself, where for myself this was in the Circle at The Everyman Theatre. The reason why is because due to the intensity of the play and the structure of the many monologues incredibly acted I must say throughout, I believe that you would only get the full experience and feeling towards all the characters the closer to the action that you are, which sadly I did not feel in the 700 seat theatre space.

I must say though that even though there were only five characters on stage, I felt like there was a sixth; the incredibly subtle lighting designed by Lee Curran. I spoke about the sequence that opens the show at the beginning, but throughout when the stories are getting more intense from all the characters who are portrayed with such passion and charisma from all involved, the tone of the lighting comes into it’s own without you really noticing, from that being a bright light coming from the side door to backlight Finbar (Louis Dempsey) or generally dimming the fixed pub lighting on the back walls to give attention to the characters, it’s so elegant and pure, something that I think genuinely gets overlooked in productions nowadays.

Overall, though the venue felt too big for the intimate action on stage, the performances given by all were genuine and raw, giving everything to a production that is beloved to the nation - Happy 20th Anniversary The Weir!