Safe House At The Abbey Theatre

I haven’t had much luck with the Irish avant garde. I have vague memories of a wordless Grotowsi-esque rendition of the Great Hunger that came to New York some decades ago. Now there’s Safe House, the new 90-minute whatchamacallit by Enda Walsh and Anna Mullarkey, now puzzling audiences on the Abbey Theatre’s downstairs Peacock Stage in Dublin.

One thing’s for certain though: Samuel Beckett has left the room.

So just what is Safe House? Writer/director Walsh describes it in the programme as “a brand new form … A song cycle. A theatre memory play. A cut up film. A gig. It’s not for me to say what it is really. It is what it is.” Fair enough.

I’d say song cycle comes closest to defining Safe House. Enda is credited for lyrics while the music (which is quite nice in its own pop-rock way) is Mullarkey’s doing. It would have helped had the lyrics been a little easier to decipher, but precise diction seems to have gone out of style in rock-tinged scores these days.

Safe House is no mere recital, however; it is fully-staged mayhem – the chaotic “happenings’ that were all the rage in the late sixties came to my mind – that tells a sort of story about a young woman named Grace (Kate Gilmore).

Having seen the show I can’t tell you much about Grace’s life in any specific detail, but it’s safe to say that it pretty much sucked and that she still suffers the PTSD of childhood trauma.

Gilmore has a crystalline voice and like all good actors she gives it her all in presenting Grace’s sad life. She gets a well deserved round of applause at show’s end.

But the real stars of Safe House it seems to me were the folks responsible for the aforementioned fully-staged mayhem.

Katie Davenport has provided a set backed by a wall that is either a homage to the more sombre work of Antoni Tapies or an abandoned handball court. The lighting by Adam Silverman is kinetic and often startling as is the sound design by Helen Atkinson.

Safe House makes extensive use of video and projections and Jack Phelan has done an astonishing job in this department. Don’t tell Disney, but he has even snuck in some clips from “Snow White.”

Then there is the prop master (Eimer Murphy) and prop supervisor (Adam O’Connell) who wrangle more props than most companies go through in an entire season. Not to mention the stage manager (Tara Furlong) who at moments must have been calling three cues in the same breath.

Whatever one might say about Safe House in the what’s-it-all-about-Alfie? department (the majority of the reviews were not kind), there’s no denying that it is a razzle-dazzle display of top-notch theatrical stagecraft. Director Walsh made heavy demands on the creative team and they came through with shining colors.

Yet despite the terrific physical production, I couldn’t help thinking that Safe House might work better as a recording – with printed lyrics to go along with it.

Safe House continues at the Abbey’s Peacock Stage through November 16, 2024. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Abbey Theatre website.

Footnote: The Peacock Theatre boasts a very nice bar for pre-show drinks, which can be taken into the auditorium. Even better, the bar is open after the show and many patrons took the opportunity to discuss the show over more drinks. It’s a practice that theaters in the United States and Canada should consider adopting.

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