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The Matchbox
By Frank McGuinness, directed by Lia Williams
Liverpool Playhouse Studio until July 7th
By Jeanette Smith
9/10
Leanne Best gives a formidable one-woman performance in the world premiere of the Match Box, a powerful play about tragedy, forgiveness and revenge by award-winning author, Frank McGuiness, one of Ireland’s foremost playwrights.
Best (Sal) is on stage for nearly two hours, and never falters in her commanding delivery of McGuinness’ beautifully written script. Sal is continually lighting matches and either dropping them on the floor or watching them burn out. She loves the smell of sulphur and right from the start there are hints of menace in her actions. The pace and pathos of the direction, by Award-winning actor and director Lia Williams, keeps you on your toes, waiting for each clue to lead you to the truth of the deaths of two of the perpetrators who killed her only child.
We learn that her only daughter, Mary, born whilst she was still at school, is fatally hit by a bullet, caught in the cross-fire of warring brothers at the age of 12. The father, a loser, had disappeared as soon as she became pregnant.
The main action takes place in England but in this retrospective we see her in a shabby one room bed-sit on Valentia Island, off the coast of County Kerry – the place from which her ancestors hailed, and relatives still live.
Her parents, a ‘severe’ lady and her dad, the ‘steady one’ are steeped in the Irish way of life, and try to help her when she is unhinged with grief – but she never cries. Although the police make reassuring noises about seeking out the killers, she knows, and her mother tells her, that no-one will talk, the truth will always remain hidden.
Her ailing father, who has obviously had experience of the Irish troubles, says of those who cause bother: “Take a match to their thatch,” a sentiment repeated twice during the action of the play. He also advises her to hold her tongue, and we realise in the closing moments of the drama that that is what she has probably done.
Best is magnificent interacting between her own character and those with whom she is ‘conversing’, easily changing her accent and tone, (a ) ́la Shirley Valentine. Although a lone actor, it seems that the stage is populated with many other people. Her anger, angst, and delusions are demonstrably real and we feel truly engaged. She approaches those on the front row of this intimate 100-seater studio and speaks directly to them. In this cosy space you feel as though you are in that shabby little bed-sit, and are part of the action.
One has to admire Best as she sustains the often challenging and intense dialogue for the whole period of the play. First she is ironic, then funny and then angry. Her mood swiftly changes from one to the other and at times we realise she is talking in riddles. McGuinness’ script contains many funny moments and laugh-out-loud flashes, but these are soon dampened by the darkness of the tale.
His language is, at times, classically rich and this, no doubt, comes from his many translations of works of Sophocles, Chekhov and Brecht, among others, and his vast knowledge of literature, but the dialogue is also intertwined with down-to-earth Irish bawdiness.
Mood music and clever lighting give this small stage a sad aura – for this is a story of loss upon loss and revenge with little respite.
In the final moments of the play, when she is alone, she finally cracks, wails and shakes in a compelling piece of acting that has one mesmerised. Bit by bit we have seen her try to stay strong, cracking jokes, whilst all along we suspect she is falling apart within.
It is McGuinness’ beautiful writing and Best’s emotive performance that makes this nearly two-hour heart-rending, unremitting narrative a superb piece of theatre.
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