For those of you who read our recent interview with the cast of The MAC‘s latest play Unhome, you’ll already know that they weren’t giving much away about the plot, and I’m not going to either.
Unhome is presented by Northern Ireland’s own Tinderbox Theatre Company and is an exploration into family, fear, mental instability and much much more. Written by playwright Jimmy McAleavey the dialogue and language is superb, poetic and disturbing all at once, a true reflection of madness, without being contrived or stereotypical at all.
The play opens onto a tired old living room where we meet Kitty (Clare McMahon) and her grandmother Cait (Helena Bereen). The set, designed by Ciaran Bagnall (who you might recognise from his excellent work on the sets for the Chilean Trilogy at The MAC a few months ago) is inspired. It’s basically an old person’s living room, but in a theatre atmosphere such as this it is surprisingly hard to capture such an authentic experience that we all know so well. Everything from the piles upon piles of newspapers and documents, to the glowing embers of the fake fire is familiar, it’s genuinely like sitting in your granny’s living room. The nooks and crannies filled with stuff and the beaded curtain are particular highlights. There’s even a window covered in ivy that helps to create an extremely credible atmosphere that sucks you in.
Throughout the play we see Kitty fall apart, she is tormented by her own demons and soon becomes unable to leave the house. The depths of her psyche are explored through the help of two unnamed characters played by Miche Doherty and Seamus O’Hara who serve as a personification of the brain’s id. They play the part perfectly as they argue back and forth with audible malice and venom. Dressed in black they become the voices in her head and we hear the irrationalities that Kitty is plagued by in her mind. As you can tell from the subject matter, this is an intense experience; truly terrifying at times as we experience Kitty’s madness first hand through her interaction with the characters around her. To tell you any more would perhaps spoil it, but this is a well crafted expedition into mental illness its causes and ‘cures’.
Unhome is running at The MAC, Belfast until 22nd November, tickets are £15 and can be booked here.
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