Theatre review: A Whistle In The Dark retains its menacing power 

Seán McGinley and Brian Gleeson star in the Abbey's production of Tom Murphy's classic play 

James Doherty O’Brien and Peter Claffey in Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark, at the Abbey Theatre. Picture: Ros Kavanagh

 

A Whistle in the Dark

The Peacock, Abbey (Dublin Theatre Festival), ★★★★☆

Before his passing in 2018, Tom Murphy spoke of A Whistle In The Dark as being a personal favourite among his 25-odd plays. Set in Coventry in the 1950s, it centres on the Carneys, an Irish family of brothers. 

The eldest, Michael, has found employment, married an English girl and done his best to assimilate, while his brothers Harry, Iggy and Hugo have got by on their reputations as brutes. Their father Dada and youngest sibling Des arrive for a week’s holiday, and there follows a tale of family dysfunction of mythological proportions, as father and sons bicker and feud.

A Whistle in the Dark: James Doherty O’Brien, Timmy Creed, Seán McGinley, and Peter Coonan, on the Peacock stage, at the Abbey Theatre. Picture: Ros Kavanagh

All the action occurs in Michael and Betty’s living-room, a space that can barely contain his siblings’ testosterone; early on, the brothers smash a teacup in an act of horse-play that highlights just how immature they are. As the characters come and go, it soon becomes apparent that the world without is no less volatile than that within; Harry, the second-eldest of the Carneys, has arranged a rumpus with a rival family, the Mulryans, from which Michael alone excuses himself.

In this production - directed by Jason Byrne -
 Seán McGinley plays Dada with great economy, his hand gestures often conveying more than his words, while Brian Gleeson is riveting as Harry, a cunning, manipulative figure who can play on the others’ weaknesses as surely as on their strengths. 

Brian Gleeson and Peter Claffey  in  A Whistle in the Dark. Picture: Ros Kavanagh

Here is a man who has found his niche in life; however loathsome his reputation as a pimp and petty crook may seem to others, it fits him like a glove. It is Harry’s goading, of Michael and Betty, of his father and Des, that leads to the awful dénouement that is no less shocking for its inevitability.

There are elements of Murphy’s play – the characters’ misogyny, for one – that will sit uneasily with contemporary audiences, but there is no doubting its authenticity. The Carneys represent an Ireland that many would rather forget; where men’s tongues were twisted by alcohol, and they learned early to speak with their fists.

 Sixty years on from its much-lauded debut, A Whistle in the Dark remains as desperate and menacing as ever.

• A Whistle in the Dark runs on the Peacock stage at the Abbey until November 5