REVIEW

LALLY THE SCUT

The MAC Belfast

A BBIE Spallen's new play, Lally the Scut, which opened at The MAC this week, shows the award-winning dramatist to be both poet and pathologist.

It opens with pregnant-again "pikey" Lally trying to locate her toddler son who has become stuck down a well near their home in border country. She and mother-in-law Edna bemoan the fact nobody's helping in language that is by turns coarse, funny and moving.

Spallen's skill at dissecting our society shows when it becomes clear Lally herself was once stuck down the same well, with her rescue gaining international headlines.

She talks about the skin-covered dark containing horrific memories. So history repeats itself and nothing really moves on, which is Spallen's theme.

As Lally says near the start, could the cause of her trouble be that "big fat dirty finger of years of bad luck never over jabbin' and pokin' me in the eye". For Lally, read Ireland.

Eventually, we meet the neighbours. In one scene the audience becomes part of a bigoted town meeting about the affair during which Lally, the outsider, is royally insulted. Nobody is spared and in the second half, there is a satirical spoof of Sinn Fein and the party's awkward attempt to gloss over the Troubles.

Tara Lynne O'Neill is superb as the female politician who can't quite get her mouth or mind round the new euphemisms.

This means she and henchman Fork the Cat need to persuade Lally to get the rescue strategy altered to avoid turning up any unfortunate reminders of the past. Favours are required, including a visit to a deranged, sexually predatory priest.

In the midst of all this, we have a decent critique of media hypocrisy via locally born journalist Owen, now based in Hampstead. His desire to save Lally is compromised by the journalist's eternal commitment to getting the exclusive.

There are some stellar performances in this Tinderbox production under Michael Duke's direction and Roisin Gallagher in the title role is truly memorable.

Of course, it turns out, just as Lally's tortured mother - played by the excellent Maria Connolly - buried her in the well, so her hapless husband Francis lured his young son underground with toys, to make some money for treats.

"You're nothing in the new Ireland without a trampoline..." he moans.

The repeat disaster is therefore self-inflicted.

* Until May 2, themaclive.co.uk.

Jane Hardy