(Chris Wiegand’s article appeared in the Guardian, 9/19; Built to last … (from left) Kate Phillips, Brendan Gleeson and Owen McDonnell in The Weir. Photograph: Rich Gilligan.)
The Weir review – a riveting return for Conor McPherson’s lonesome barflies
Harold Pinter theatre, London
Almost 30 years on, the Irish playwright’s intimate drama brims with painful memories and comedy – brought to dazzling effect by a flawless cast
Conor McPherson’s rural Irish bar-room drama seeps into your bones. Almost 30 years since its first production, I can still recall the chill that came across Rae Smith’s snug set, hear the humorous sneer in the line “the Harp drinkers” and sense the despair beneath the banter.
McPherson’s aptitude for atmosphere was later deployed in his Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country, set during the Great Depression, and will be tested when he evokes the dystopian Panem for an immersive version of The Hunger Games. But first here is The Weir, back for another round, designed again by Smith and this time directed by McPherson in a revival of such exactness it appears effortless.
The headline star is Brendan Gleeson but The Weir is an ensemble: its characters are on different frequencies yet see each other for who they are. That goes for the locals as well as a stranger like Valerie, relocating from Dublin as a “blow-in” while literal gales whistle outside in Gregory Clarke’s sound design. Her arrival prompts a troubling exchange of tall tales, dreams, memories and confessions but McPherson judiciously uses humour to clear the air between them. Much like a weir, the effect is simultaneously of free flow and stillness.
