The Stage

This Piece of Earth

Published Wednesday 25 April 2007 at 12:55 by Jane Coyle

No visual interpretation can come in any way close to capturing the scale and awfulness of the Great Famine in Ireland in the mid-19th century. Every corner of the island was blighted by this shameful episode, during which the very land itself refused to nurture any living being - except carrion birds.

Belfast actor Richard Dormer has returned home from working with the Peter Hall Company to remind us of what an excellent writer he is, with this short, harrowing drama, which focuses with Beckettian bleakness, on the agonising last hours of a couple, who have, literally, reached the end of the road.

Within the parched, reeking round of Diego Pitarch’s set, starkly lit by James Whiteside, it is a privilege to witness at such close quarters the unremitting truthfulness and intimacy of Lalor Roddy and Pauline Goldsmith’s performances in Rachel O’Riordan’s searing production. As John and Maeve Hardy, they struggle to breathe life into each other, in a vain attempt to reach the sea and possible escape on a famine ship. But teasing, bullying, reminiscing, flirting and reciting poetry cannot accomplish the taking of another single step and it is left to Dormer’s cursing priest, crazed by the terrible things he has witnessed, to bring hollow redemption to this pathetic piece of earth.