Guests Of The Nation review: Timely revival of Frank O'Connor's classic story
A scene from Guests of the Nation, by Corcadorca at Cork Midsummer Festival. Picture: Enrique Carnicero
★★★★☆
The short story Guests of the Nation by Frank O’Connor is rightly considered a masterpiece. First published in 1931, it is set during the War of Independence, and centres on two English soldiers, held hostage by the IRA, and the bond they form with their captors.
This revisiting of the short story by Corcadorca for Cork Midsummer Festival is a timely one, given not only the centenary commemorations, but also the wars that continue to rage on our own continent and beyond. It is also apt that the production draws on the talents of Kevin Barry, another acknowledged virtuoso of the short story.
The show, directed by Pat Kiernan, takes place across two sites, Cork Opera House and the Triskel Arts Centre. The first two scenes take place in the Opera House balcony, where the audience is initially in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. But gradually, in the harsh glare of a flashlight, the story begins to reveal itself as the relationship between the British soldiers, Belcher and Hawkins, and their captors, Noble and Bonaparte, unfolds.
The genders are flipped in the main roles, with strong performances from Gina Moxley, Amy Conroy, Liz Fitzgibbon and Chloe O’Reilly. We wonder whose testimony is reliable as time, perspective and the identity of the characters shift.
The walk across the city to the Triskel mirrors in one sense the unsettling transition of the hostages being moved to a new location, and gives the audience time for contemplation, but the play loses some context and momentum as a result.
In the Triskel, the performers are already in situ, playing cards on a raised platform akin to a boxing ring as the audience files into the dark claustrophobic space.
Barry skilfully mines the poetry of O’Connor’s words, adding a few of his own as the characters spar with each other and play Russian Roulette with a pink pistol. Contemporary references add to the sense of uncertainty and disorientation as does the stark soundscape, masterfully realised by composer Mel Mercier.
The action builds to an impressive climax in the courtyard of the Triskel, in front of the dramatically-lit columned portico, where the hooded soldiers kneel on a sandbagged platform, for what, in this case, turns out to be a public execution. It is a disturbing yet moving denouement that finishes with what is up there with the greatest last lines of literature — “And anything that ever happened me after I never felt the same about again”.
As the audience leaves, those words, counterpointed with the deceptively jaunty tune Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire, linger in the air. Handily, Corcadorca provide a card with a QR code that links directly to the short story. It is a gift on all fronts to be reminded of it. The medium may have changed but the message has not.
- Guests of the Nation continues 21-22, 24 and 25 June — sold out
