You don’t have to know a lot about “The Troubles” in the late 1900s in six Northern counties (formerly known as Ulster and now part of Great Britain as Northern Ireland) to realize how much they affected its citizens due due to their political and religious loyalties. Everything’s clear in James Evans’ long monologue as he acts out how he as Kenneth McCallister came to attend a World Cup Tournament and its effects on him personally and regarding the political situation in both parts of the island of Ireland. It’s all interesting and may even be admirably right in the larger sense.
Author Marie Jones, a Belfast native and Protestant, makes Kenneth McCallister the hero of his account in ways other than as a very competent deliverer of over 20 other roles. He’s a Protestant worker in a Belfast office and atypically of lower status than his Catholic boss. One telling scene has him drive the boss to his home via Falls Road, separated from non-Catholic ones by barbed wire. Surprise: The boss’s home is superior to McCallister’s.
A major joy to McCallister is having just been given Golf Club Membership (perhaps dwelt on a bit long), a social and status boost. A major headache and heartache is his dwindling relationship in scenes with his wife. His close friendships also get tested as much as his beliefs.
The World Cup Tournament is a highlight. There’s also a change in the flags that will designate McCallister’s allegiance. All of the visual projections and the lighting for regular scenes are well executed and often enhanced by the sound design.
It’s no surprise that able director Kristin Clippard has doubled as a scene designer for FST’s challenging small Bowne’s Lab stage. Changing props are crucial to changes of scene and activity that affects action here.
Paul Meier has done an excellent job of coaching McCallister on dialect, since Belfast natives have their distinct own. I do question one point in the script where a staunch Northerner refers to Derry rather than Londonderry. (The latter does happen mostly, though). The play program greatly helps for understanding topical, historic, dialectical, and geographic references.
If anything bothers me is that this play’s take on the place, time, situation is much less important in subject matter than would be one that could deal with “The Troubles” per se. But I have a feeling that Marie Jones, who wrote the excellent “Stones in Her Pocket”, has now exhausted her take on what’s happened in Ireland.
