There’s a moment described in Mark O’Rowe’s new play Terminus, where a woman has been battered over the head with a chair. As she comes to, she realises that a man is wanking over her comatose body. That comes as close as I can get to describing the experience of watching this production, the moment I realised the opening monologues weren’t just prologues before the real drama began, but the whole dramatic structure.
Maybe I was in a bad mood. The audience seemed to like it. The cast were brought back for a curtain call when I saw it in preview. There were moments I admired the language. There were moments, too, when I laughed at the regurgitated dark and comical snippets of modern Irish life. But these pleasantries paled when I realised what I was being asked to swallow.
It seems that sexual metaphors are called for, because without using them I cannot describe what I felt. This is a script that revels in sex, grotesque violence, a cold-blooded serial murderer separated from his soul on the run, women betrayed by their men, lesbianism, life after death, Faustian pacts and worm-formed demons and angels. They are fantasy themes that any adolescent lad with half an imagination and a creepy obsession with gory fantasy fiction could come up with. The trouble is, Joss Whedon has already claimed this territory in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, with a wit, panache and a post-modern irony that redeems the terrain from its pubescent self-indulgence, and with which most under-30s (who I presume are the intended audience for this piece) are familiar. Whedon blazed a trail in creating popular strong female fantasy characters, who are just as violent as men, albeit with matchstick-like figures. But, even acknowledging the fact that few are talented enough to match his genius, it should be interesting to see what happens if such themes are played out in an Irish context. And indeed, in O’Rowe’s Ireland, Toto, we’re not in Sunnydale anymore. This is ugly, heartless scissor-sister-land, bleak and irredeemable. That in itself is a worthwhile exercise; apply a genre to a culture, and draw your own conclusions.
However, for that to come off successfully on stage, the end result has to be dramatic. But, this was a trio of actors taking turns reciting verse, telling us their stories, rooted to the spot. There is not a moment’s silence in the 100 or so minutes – we are bombarded with clever rhyming words. The actors do not relate at all to each other onstage, they take turns to speak, segueing into each other’s words without giving us a second to assimilate. The characters turn out to be linked to each other in the plot, in a time-warped elliptical way, but there isn’t much to connect them otherwise. One character is a psychopathic persecutor, one a hapless victim, one an insanely foolish rescuer. But this drama triangle is curiously undramatic, because all the action is reported, not enacted. The actors are disconnected, from each other and from us. The fragmented narrative is echoed in the bare set, which is simply a framed fourth wall, a mirror that is smashed as a curtain-raiser, with the actors behind it standing up to say their piece and sitting down again. But the mirror might as well have remained intact for all the interest O’Rowe had in empathising with the audience. For this felt like a manifestation of a particular kind of masturbatory male sexuality, with which I am overly familiar; it’s hot to watch sometimes, if the guy is fit, trendy and knows how to put on a display. But if he oozes arrogance and seems to think he’s God’s gift, and only gets off on the concept that someone is watching him, then the appeal is transitory, as appealing as a quick hand-job in the bushes. There might, conceivably, be a frisson of pleasure if he took the time to arouse me, to invite me to collude in his fantasy, to play the game with him. But such a guy doesn’t stand a chance to win me over, if I want to be made love to.
I’ve been made love to in the theatre by playwrights, male and female. I’ve been treated to foreplay, teasing, encouragement; I’ve been cajoled and inveigled and persuaded to care, to relax, to trust. Open wide, this will only hurt a little. I’ve been tickled and stroked and cuddled, and squeezed so tight I could hardly breathe. And I have been right royally fucked in the theatre, in violent, sexual plays like Matt Harris’ Jack the Lad and Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking. And if the rhythm is right, the setting is right, the chemistry is right, then actors and audience come together in a climax of emotional impact – whether that be pain, tears, love, shock, horror, laughter or joy.
Perhaps, not for the first time, I am asking too much. I did not feel that the production was even attempting to engage my emotions, to relate to me as an equal, although the individual actors tried their best, isolated in their cold circles of light. I felt that I was supposed to be an admirer of his cocky, manipulative, wordy prowess. This is perhaps why I have reacted so negatively. Or, at least, if I am supposed to experience pleasure in being dominated and brutalised by a production, then please gain my trust first, and then do my head in. That’s informed consent.
The programme is the published script, and on perusing it now, it actually reads very well. It should, therefore, be produced on the radio. Eileen Walsh, through sheer force of will, managed to get me to care about her character, and her commitment to tell the story of falling for her grotesque demon lover was impressive. And when Andrea Irvine described her gruesome murderous moment, the audience squirmed and groaned. But if O’Rowe (as both writer and director) was interested in alluding to his motives for making his actors tell such shocking tales of degradation, abuse and butchery, he failed to communicate it to me. Context is all. Is this what’s fashionable now in Irish theatre? A meretricious showy sub-Tarantino Dub loquaciousness? Is psychology, by which I mean the curiosity about human motivation, passé? As the dynamic Aidan Kelly reaches the end of his tale, and tells us about his character’s eviscerating descent to oblivion, we hear nothing sensible about how he came to live a life of such psychotic depravity. He sings an absurd song – correction, he describes himself singing an absurd song. It made the audience laugh. Well, that’s alright then.
I am a firm believer in the use of theatre as a safe space for us to explore our shadow. Sure, place as much base immoral and abusive behaviour as can be tolerated by an audience onstage, as long as we are informed of the motives, the agonies, the cruelties, the values, the choices behind it, as long as it is interrogated dramatically, there is light and shade. That way, we can both be shocked by the dark material, and yet also shiver in recognition, and in that catharsis we advance our knowledge of the human condition a millimeter or two. But without that emotional connection to the audience, the violence and the sex and the satanic shenanigans become gratuitous and pornographic. Maybe if I liked porn I’d have liked this show.
But I doubt it.
{ 16 } Comments
What a review… what a bloody fine piece of writing. Dermod, we met at the College of Surgeons and this is the first piece of your work I’ve read.
By writing such a powerful review, you offer me a choice: to take your word and walk away thankful that I’ve been saved from wasting my time on stuff I wouldn’t find satisfying. Or to go explore the drama for myself, with your views in my back pocket, so to speak. I could go either way and that’s the beauty of excellent reviewing.
I thank you for it.
Now I must go away and ask myself what would happen to my play if I got it put on stage? Are my characters doing enough on stage? Are they leaving enough silence? Leaving enough room for the audience? Are they written with an audience in mind, or are they only written for the performer?
Thanks again.
Thanks Paul!
They’re lovely questions.
Ominablog go and see the play yourself man… Don’t just go by what someone says… Yeah, maybe that guy Dermod can write (The review was a little too dragged out in my opinion) but what he sees in the theatre isn’t gonna be what you see… I saw Howie the Rookie and its actually one of the best play’s i’ve ever seen, and thats just two different stories too… its also one of the most dramatic plays i’ve ever seen and all they’re doing is telling stories, there’s no scenes… and we don’t find out once why they are where they are and doing what they’re doing… you see we don’t need to know… in this world sometimes people are just born into shit, and you dont need to know their life history and reasons for doing what they’re doing, just sit down and listen… ah, its a new generation guys… thank god that irish theatre is changing because it was just about dead… mark o’rowe is a bloody shakespeare to the youth of dublin today, teens who wouldn’t even go the theatre have related to his work so much… but maybe they also like the odd bit of porn now and again too… but since you don’t like porn dermod and probably haven’t seen what alot of the youths today have seen maybe thats why you just didn’t relate to it… too bad…
and omaniblog or paul or whatever… don’t be a fuckin sheep… go and see the play…
Hi there
Thanks for the comment. Yes I do go on a bit, must try harder to be more concise next time. I think you miss Paul’s point, he wasn’t going to avoid seeing the show because of what I wrote.
By choosing to write so subjectively, I hope others who have seen the show can respond here with their own subjective response – and if it’s as passionate as mine, even if it’s in total disagreement, I’m delighted.
I think you’re right on one point – it is a generational thing, in a way – the material, the shit, is contemporary and relevant, and I can quite see why it would appeal. As I said, it was well received on the night I saw it. My principle objection is that the structure really inhibits the telling of the story. And as for Shakespeare, he knew a thing or two about dramatic structure and psychology. Indeed, if the same bleak/fantastical material was told in a truly Shakespearean way, I’d be hooked.
But I disagree profoundly with your saying “we don’t need to know”. Disturbing and violent behaviour is never random, there’s always a context to it in real life. I don’t expect a play to list early childhood traumas or shocking poverty that may have contributed to a character’s malevolence; but without placing such a character in any social relational or economic context, I just can’t relate.
Perhaps I’m more political, or come from a more political generation. There seems to be a trend these days in the younger generation to see things as random, disconnected, beyond their control, and they don’t want to bother to find out why things are the way they are. It’s political apathy, it’s alienation of a profound sort. There doesn’t seem to be any anger in response, or it has nowhere to go. If a playwright wishes to address that, fantastic, but I don’t think it’s good enough to simply put it out there in such a way that colludes with the alienation and seems to reinforce the notion that shit happens and isn’t it mad and let’s make it a bit absurd so it’s just a bit of a laff and doesn’t really get under our skin.
I’d love to know what you mean by “what a lot of the youths today have seen” – it’s as if we oldies (and I’m only 44!) were never young ourselves, or are blind to life around us. But then, I thought the same when I was a teenager.
I’d like to defend sheep against Anonymous.
I guess I went on a bit and it might have been easy to miss my main point buried in the rest of the words.
My key point was contained in
“By writing such a powerful review, you offer me a choice: to take your word and walk away thankful that I’ve been saved from wasting my time on stuff I wouldn’t find satisfying. Or to go explore the drama for myself, with your views in my back pocket, so to speak. I could go either way and that’s the beauty of excellent reviewing.”
So I kept to myself the ability to go or not to go to the reviewed drama.
As regards people “born into shit”, I don’t need to know anything about them. I don’t need to interest myself in them. They have their life. I have mine. However, I might choose to be curious about them. I would certainly be more curious about them if I know where they came from, how they evolved historically or biographically.
Whether they choose to go to the theatre is their business, not mine unless I choose to make it so.
As for throwing in a few ‘fucks’ to punctuate or stimulate, I’m bored by such prose, unless it comes from an authentic character.
Hi,
I largely agree with your review. I left Terminus after 30 minutes. Surely, I don’t need to be white to be disinterested in 3 voices reading out a grotesque novel. It was utter rubbish – and to call that a theartre play? Common!
Dean,
I suspect I wouldn’t have enjoyed it either. But to the people who put it on, it was their art, their effort to achieve artistic expression. I suppose it is good for them to know that at least one person walked out saying that it was “utter rubbish”. That sort of feedback needs to be heard by the artist. But what I liked about Dermod’s reviewing was that he left me thinking that, even though, I probably wouldn’t like the production, I might go along to experience something I didn’t really enjoy. That discomfort might do me good, once and a while.
But obviously you felt a lot stronger than that, and I haven’t been tested.
Very impressive review (although sometimes I have difficulty with clarity in some sentences). I have taken kind of a different spin on things to you, check out my review at http://alanmurrin.wordpress.com/review-terminus-peacock-theatre/
My page goes under the rather pretentious name of arts&lettersdublin but believe me it is still very much under construction. I don’t think the problem with the play is so much that we can’t determine the character’s motivations. In the world O’Rowe describes all sense seems to have gone out the window. Also, I don’t think that the idea of motivation is passé but that sometimes people do things out of sheer cruelty and misanthropy and this for a writer is the hardest thing of all to aritculate. Also, I read Susan Sontag’s ‘On interpretation’ quite recently. It is very interesting in that it challenges western notions of what a work of art should be and how it should be received. Give it a look if you haven’t already. Well done, again.
Hey, I’m a freelance theatre director and just came about your blog by chance. Just want to say that’s some of the best reviewing I’ve read in a long time. Funny – I’d just read AA Gill on the Sunday Times site, with an article on how dull theatre reviewing is, and how that’s hurting London Theatre. I didn’t really understand what he meant til just now. I haven’t seen Terminus yet but I loved hearing such a passionate response, with clear analysis of a subjective reaction. It just gets you excited. Fair play. Keep doing it. Irish theatre needs you…
Cheers paddercorderoy, that’s very encouraging. Interesting article, I agree: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article1961473.ece
and http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article1961478.ece
just went to see this, mmmm…reminded me of ‘the port authority’ by conor mcpherson from the outset. i liked the writing, well directed in terms of delivery(direction) a useful advantage if one is both writ/dir.but it was implausible (the story) and that would be fine to suspend disbelief (especially when the worm demon turned up!), but then you could predict the story a mile off, i felt mark had just finished watching ‘being j malchovich(sic)’ when he wrote this. its got laughs and the time passes quickly!
i have never reviewed anything in my life!!!
oh the acting was good…but monologues are easier fodder,aren’t they?
‘well directed in terms of delivery (direction)’ DOH!
Okay, maybe I was looking for somebody, anybody, else who might share my opinion on this ‘play’ and that’s how I find myself here, months later, still bitching about it.
Three people talking to an audience is not a play, it’s a lecture. However, the best lecturers understand the power of silence and allow for the occasional pause. Not so for Mr. O’Rowe (Golly was that a rhyme?) He simply showers us with language, a lot of which is anal DublinSpeak.
And enough with the product placement (In this case Lockets) which seems so essential to gutsy young hip Irish playwrights. Am I the only one bored stupid with coy references to Curly-Wurlies and Cadburys Twirls? We geddit. You’re a streetfighter with a sweet tooth.
Gotta go.
I would like it if there was more ifo about the characters played, thier language etc…but all in all a good review.
You may be interested to learn that I had already bought my tickets for “Terminus” for it’s Edinburgh Festival run at the Traverse Theatre, when I stumbled across your review. My heart sank. Not only had I committed myself to the perfromance, but I had also bought tickets for 24 x 17-18 year old students. I felt they would think the whole thing pretentious and boring. I desperately tried to find more favourable reviews, but the passion of yours seemed to cancel any of the many “clever monologues” type reviews. So, I went to see it expecting to hate it. So it is with complete surprise, that I liked it and better still, all the students also raved about it. Indeed, even after a week of seeing many fantastic pieces of drama at the festival, for many of my students, “Terminus” was their highlight. I found the verse, gripping and intoxicating to listen to. The actors understood the rhythm and the lyricism of the language, it was hypnotic from beginning to end. The inter-weaving monologues were wonderfully played by the three performers and despite the lack of interaction between the characters, the intensity held our attention throughout. The actors used their faces, gestures and bodies with fantastic control and precision to create a really electrifying production. I’m sorry to disagree with you, but I felt after having read your review, someone needed to stand up for this extraordinary production. Having seen Conor McPherson’s “This Lime Tree Bower” with its similar structure and performance style (and really not enjoyed it), my liking for “Terminus” came as a complete revelation and surprise. I hope this blog might inspire others to go see it and make up their own mind, rather than be put off by this rather damning review.
Hi Steph,
No need to apologise for disagreeing with me! All comment is welcome here. The beauty of blogging is the conversation.
Dermod
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