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Her sister-in-law, Caitlin (Laura Donnelly, in a breathtaking performance that earned her the Olivier Award) and her teenage son, Oisin (Rob Malone), headstrong, live under the same roof. Then there is Tom Kettle (Justin Edwards), child-like (and English-born) handyman invaded by vegetation. And because it's harvest day, three young members of the same family, the Corcorans, come to swell their ranks.
But wait! I did not mention the unwanted visitors who arrive at dusk and cast dark shadows over Carney's glowing hearth: a mad priest, Father Horrigan (Charles Dale), and the sinister chief of the Irish Republic, Mr. Muldoon (Stuart Graham) his henchmen (Dean Ashton and Glenn Speers), whom we have already met in the grim prologue of the play, take place in a graffiti-covered lane in the nearby town of Derry.
As unlikely as it may seem, you will have no trouble separating these characters. Each hair has a striking specificity, even in non-talking parts, such as the Bobby infant, a wild rabbit and the aforementioned goose. Mr. Butterworth has gone to the trouble of defining each one of them, and the distribution is repaid with performances that blaze unconditionally in the present moment.
Equally important, as part of a play about the Irish, it is the undead, the absent souls that exist not only as memories scrupulously maintained, but also as catalysts of a scenario increasingly rich in events. Among them are the late patriarch of the family, whose black and white portrait is a blessing and a curse, and his brother in romantic memory, killed by British troops during the Easter rally in Dublin in 1916.
But Caitlin's missing husband, Seamus, is of utmost importance. His strangely preserved body died after 10 years and was discovered in a peat bog a short time before the beginning of the play. The news will break the comfortable and carefully monitored order of the Carney family and will result in obscure deceptions in the harsh light.
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