View from the Green Room: Swimming against the tide
Saba's Swim: 'We need to see more of this splendid cast'
Seven months ago, Saba walked out of her Leaving Cert mocks and didn’t come back. Her friends never understood why – despite endless discussions – and we wait for the mystery to unravel.
It’s a dramatic hook that takes a long time to unravel and comes in the form of an allegory that’s shared in a soliloquy to the audience.
Saba’s been dreaming about swimming against the tide in a sea of troubled faces, forcing her to confront global issues on… well… global issues that are never really articulated.
Activism is like that. It’s all protest and the struggle with little sense of endgame or solutions.
It’s debs night as Saba finally makes contact with her butties. She’s changed now. Different. And she needs her pals to be radically different too.
They need to recognise that the establishment – especially school (of, course Catholic) – is working against them.
Saba needs a grand gesture and – since all the action of the play takes place in the school hall – where better to start than with burning the school hall down? Action and consequence never meet in Saba’s world view.
One by one, the friends desert her and Saba is left to incinerate St. Joseph’s School Hall in a glorious act of rebellious vanity with herself in situ.
However, in an act of incredulous generosity, the father of one of Saba’s pals offers to rebuild the hall and name it in honour of Saba – the girl that burned it down! Mmmmm…?
The best of this play lies in the performances. Every one of the ensemble is word and cue perfect and characterisation is sharp and convincing.
Sadhbh Ní Chéilleachair’s well-judged Saba is a powerhouse of angst and argument that drives on the action.
Neeva Coughlan’s Obie is a wordy and grounded adversary.
Emily Doherty as Bea, Bernadetto di Placido as Carla, Emma Coughlan as Dean, Freddie Nathan as Cathal, Leon Kavanagh as Thor and Lucy Colbert as Jay are suitably supportive and contrary as Saba’s Leaving Cert pals.
Director Sinéad Hourigan does well with this preachy script by concentrating on characterisation rather than the elusive plot. The use of disco beat teen music for the many change-over scenes is clever and expresses the spirit of the script, and bring it front and centre into the Garter Lane audience.
We need to see more of this splendid Waterford Youth Arts' cast.
