Revved-up Carr - Village Magazine

December - January 2017 5 9

NY PLAY that starts with a chorus of small

children chanting: “All happy families resem-

ble one another, each unhappy family is

unhappy in its own way”, has to be the per-

fect antidote to Al Porter in the 'Ugly Sisters'.

But there’s much more to Marina Carr’s effervescent

three-hour adaptation of Tolstoy’s epic love story 'Anna

Karenina' in its first ever production at the Abbey Thea

tre this Christmas.

In our world of “twitter-brain” and dumbing down for

the cherished lowest common denominator, Carr’s

exquisite adaptation exudes immense respect for her

audience’s attention span, intelligence, capacity for

black humour, and for what I’m quite sure she considers

our limitless and profound depths. Respect for depth is

now so rare in any form of media or entertainment.

With the recent proliferation of work like Anu Produc

tions’ lauded site-specific, script-free theatre regularly

reaping five-star reviews at home and abroad (this trend

isn’t just parochial) - and buckets of funding – the role

of the playwright seems to have been diminished. Thea

tre guru Peter Brook may indeed have written that the

script is only one tenth of a theatre show, but that hardly

justifies its becoming oddly superfluous, a sort of endan-

gered species, dispensed with as if the audience

wouldn’t even notice.

Don’t get me wrong, I was the number one fan of Anu’s

powerful ‘Laundry’ in Sean Mac Dermott street (and even

wrote to that effect right here).

However, after the initial novelty wears off, the ‘empty

space’ of script-free theatre just leaves me pining for the

rigour, meat and catharsis of a good script. How can we

empathise without a protagonist? A tragic hero/ine with

an endearing fatal flaw? Plot points?

I’m fed up, sometimes terrified, of being physically

squeezed into a tight corner, deafened by special effects:

an actor invading my personal space or asking me to

intervene and fasten her bra strap. And all for what? At

the end of a claustrophobic and uncomfortable evening

- at the theatre in which your senses are assaulted, you

don’t even get to go home with a decent story in your

pocket, or a character to hang your coat on. None of this

plays to the strengths of the genre: theatricality. Moreo-

ver in 2016 it’s not even as if your Youtube-devotee

friends are going to be impressed by where you spent

your evening any more.

Influential German choreographer Pina Bausch may

have created urgent, world-changing work that was

script-free, but that was in the specific context of the

Post-World War II Stunde Null [Zero Moment], when, as

a result of extreme trauma, no narration was possible.

There’s no reason, beyond tiring vogue, behind the glee-

ful abandonment of script and story that we’re lately

being made to endure.

What a relief instead to have Marina Carr grip us firmly

in a dry hand and lead us on a journey through Tolstoy’s

‘abattoir of love’ (with the help of director Wayne Jordan

and a stunning cast of 21) - piercing fearlessly to the jug

ular of this intricate, heart-wrenching tale.

Instead of fashionable gender favouritism, Carr dis-

plays equal empathy, and disdain, for her male

characters as for the females. Mischievously, she makes

her leading male rivals (Declan Conlon and Rory Fleck

Byrne) kiss each other. Other male characters admit to

fear of being swept “away in your amniotic fluid”. There’s

an outlandish “woman question” scene, and we are

treated to a sighting of childbirth on stage, a theatre

rarity for good reason.

In a world populated by unstoppable children and with

babies everywhere, (Tolstoy incidentally was father to

26, (only) half of which were illegitimate), Lisa Dwan, as

Anna, gives practical advice on family planning to the

perennially pregnant and cheated-on Dolly (Ruth McGill).

Bolstered by dancing (choreographed by Liz Roche),

David Coonan’s well-judged score (played live by pia-

nists Andrew and Cathal Sinnott), and sprinkled with

Sarah Bacon’s seasonal fur coats and snow, Tolstoy’s

fecund, complex story is familiar, and like the love that

is its loud-revving engine, perennial as the grass.

In the retro-chic universe of vinyl records, and hand-

written letters, inspired by the Abbey show, my

Christmas read this year is 'Anna Karenina' – all 978

pages of it. How Luddite, delicious, and – since the

advent of Putin, the dissolution of the USSR, and alleged

election sabotaging - how timely. For just €6, Carr’s

script, which is the play programme, is a perfect Christ-

mas Stocking filler – along with a ticket to the show.

CULTURE

Revved-up Carr

Marina Carr brings back the script,

to Anna Karenina at the Abbey

by Deirdre Mulrooney

Theatre guru Peter Brook

wrote that the script is only

one tenth of a theatre show,

but that hardly justiﬁes its

being dispensed with as if the

audience wouldn’t even notice