Disco Pigs review and pictures: Triumphant return for classic Cork play
Aoise Meaney as Runt and Séamus McLean Ross as Pig in Disco Pigs at the Everyman in Cork. Picture: Marcin Lewandowski
★★★★★
When theatre company Corcadorca and director Pat Kiernan staged at the Triskel in Cork in 1996, they captured lightning in a bottle, creating one of the city’s defining cultural moments.
Enda Walsh’s groundbreaking script fused with the raw manic energy of actors Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh to produce a genuinely transformative theatrical experience, one that graduated from tiny theatres and pubs to conquer the world.
On Friday night, we were back in the city where it all began, this time in the grander surroundings of the Everyman Theatre for a major production marking the 30th anniversary, with the added attraction of Enda Walsh directing his play for the first time.
Pig (Séamus McLean Ross) and Runt (Aoise Meaney) are the symbiotically attached 17-year-olds on the threshold of adulthood, rampaging through the pubs and clubs of their hometown ‘Pork City’, their burgeoning appetites co-existing with their teenage innocence in a stew of tension and frustration.
Tackling a play which has taken on almost mythical status is a pressurised situation for any actor, not to mention for two young performers who must carry a visceral and physically demanding two-hander in their own made-up language.
The Cork accent proves a challenge at times for the Scottish-born McClean Ross but his performance is outstanding, achieving the perfect calibration of bravado and vulnerability. Meaney is a revelation as the spirited and determined Runt who can glimpse a life beyond Pig and Pork City.
One gripe is that it was difficult to pick up on everything the characters said, and some lines were lost in the mix.
All the necessary Cork references are present and correct, from Roy Keane to Tanora, and there is a powerful pull back to the happier times of the 1990s, when girls drank Ritz, Sonia O’Sullivan was on the podium and Terry Wogan on the telly. But underneath it all is the universal and age-old song of innocence and experience, when childish things must be put away.
Production values are high, from costuming, set design, lighting and sound right down to the programme, with its playful scribbles alluding to gripes about the non-Cork casting.
As Pig and Runt’s night out takes a devastating turn, building to a gut-wrenching climax, you can hear a pin drop, the audience completely rapt. Nostalgia is understandably in the air but this is an electrifying and powerful production that stands on its own merits.
It is a job very well done for Walsh, whose script is as fresh and vivid and ever and who also deserves credit for taking the reins of a production freighted with expectation. He has once again given the city that nurtured his talent a gift, this time an optimistic and timely reminder of the power of great art.
- is at the Everyman Theatre until Nov 14. everymancork.com
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