Theatre Review: Portia Coughlan, Almeida Theatre

⭑⭑⭑

There’s a wolf tooth growin in me heart and it’s turnin me from everywan and everythin I am.

The unravelling of a young woman, loss, grief, obsession, female sexuality and the challenges of motherhood are some of the key themes present in this macabre drama, written by Irish playwright Marina Carr and directed by Carrie Cracknell.

Cracknell’s reimaging of Carr’s 1996 taboo-breaking work, takes us deep into the rural Irish countryside, where the truculent language and landscape reflect the emotional terrain of our central character, Portia Coughlan. We first meet Portia (Alison Oliver) on the morning of her thirtieth birthday and the 15th anniversary of her twin brother’s death, as she looks back on her life and is haunted by the ghosts of her past. Portia is almost paralysed by grief and has never recovered from her brother Gabriel’s tragic death. His ghost (Archee Aitch Wylie), haunts the gloomy backdrop, singing Maimuna Meimon’s soul-stirring lyrics, which helps to unsettle and draw the audience in. In these moments we witness Portia being torn between two worlds, further adding to the audiences understanding and appreciation of her duplicity.

The staging is interesting; it is half-lit, helping to create an eery atmosphere, the room smells musky and cigarette smoke pervades the air. It feels unpleasant and quite claustrophobic which mirrors Portia’s relationship with her family. The forefront and living room is rather drab and uninviting set against the backdrop of the Belmont river which appears to reflect Portia’s apathy towards her own existence and her connectivity to nature and the river where she feels most alive and closest to her late brother.

The play invites the audience to explore whether Portia can finally free herself from the shackles of her past and make her own way in the world or whether she is destined to continue in this self-destructive vain.

When Carr first released the play, it was quite controversial and whilst many of it’s key themes are less shocking to today’s audience, we are still left reveling by reports of incest and in-breeding speckled throughout the first half - made more digestible through the darkly comical wit of Portia, her wicked tongued granny (Sorcha Cusack) and former sex-worker and family friend Maggie-May (Kathy Kiera Clarke) the only seemingly ‘stable’ character in the show. Maggie May and her ever affable partner Senchil (Fergal McElheron) provide some much needed comic relief throughout. The same themes are less easy to digest in the second act however, which feels punchier and tighter in terms of running order and structure than the first, but still as bleak. Cracknell plays around with the structure at the midpoint to add intrigue and comes at the second half with a fresh perspective in order to further the audience’s understanding of the plight of it’s central character.

Cracknell explores female sexuality through the language used by the other characters to describe Portia. She is desired by all and revered by none. She is frequently objectified and vilified by the men in her town and even the women in her family use sexually derogative language to describe her escapades. I feel like Cracknell is trying to make a statement about a woman’s place in society and the significance and impact of the male gaze in determining this. 

The writing challenges the stereotype of the typical Irish mother and housewife, for Portia is none of these things. She talks of her children as if they are a bind, cares little for domesticity or caring for her husband and in one scene laments how she wishes she had made a different choice, taken a different path. Her relationship with her mother Marianne (Mairead McKinley) is tumultuous to say the least, at times the characters sparring matches result in a physical altercation. Portia’s appears to have it all and also nothing. She doesn’t value any part of her existence. Every seemingly good thing is overshadowed by her obsession with her brother.

Whilst there are some stellar performances, most notably from Alison Oliver and Kathy Kiera Clarke, the whole thing is somewhat of an ordeal. Bleak from beginning to end, there appears to be no ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for Portia and her miserable existence and after a while the audience is less engaged and of that world. It is almost impossible for the audience to imagine her escaping from this melancholy world and self-destruction and making a better life for herself.

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