Theatre review: Sive at Everyman, Cork
The Abbey Theatre’s touring production of John B Keane’s powerful play is a mixture of farce, pathos and tragedy. Set in North Kerry in the 1950s, Sive was the Listowel playwright’s breakthrough work, heralding a new voice in Irish theatre with its use of the vernacular and its probing of society’s dark underbelly. Its performance a sold-out Everman underlined how the tale still has relevance today.
Greed, small mindedness and misogyny are at the heart of this drama in which Sive, a beautiful 18-year-old illegitimate girl is matched with an old man. Instead of the girl coming to the marriage with a dowry, the elderly Seán Dóta (Derry Power) is offering Sive’s uncle and his wife £200 in a deal that is to be brokered by the local matchmaker, Thomasheen Seán Rua. The odious matchmaker, played by Cork actor Simon O’Gorman in a totally over-the-top manner, also stands to gain from the match.
