Crestfall

Overview

Irish playwright Mark O’Rowes Crestfall is made up of three monologues for women. The trio of intersecting stories all take pace on the same day, based around the site of a messy abattoir known as "The Bonelands". The themes are as dark as you could expect. Prostitution, drug addiction, beastiality and domestic violence all feature heavily. However the play's language is as strange and flowery as T.S. Elliott's Jaberwocky. Sometimes it works, becoming beautifully, evocative and tragi-comic: "His big belly bouncing, feel it on my flanks there, grinding, trying to find his rhythm." And sometimes it trips up on it’s own self consciousness. “Submission is all he knows, the sissy. Surrender. Self-pity.”

This kind of dialogue would be a challenge for any actor, especially delivered solo in 30 minute chunks, but the three leads all handle it admirably. Young actress Sarah Snook is great as the town tart, although she does seem a little buckled by the language. Georgina Symes is mesmerising as a drug addicted prostitute. But it’s Eliza Logan who is the play's standout as a prim neighbour. It’s a confident and pared back production directed by Shannon Murphy.

As accomplished as the show is I was left wondering why so many plays from the Griffin are like this: unrelentingly bleak European dirges. As though suffering and darkness were automatically a mark of quality. Plus the playwright's views of women are alarmingly one-eyed and sexist. A lot of male writers get accused of suffering from a Madonna/Whore complex, and O’Rowe does nothing to counter the cliché.

Photo by Ella Condon.