FringeReview UK 2024
Lie Low
Royal Court Theatre and Prime Cut Productions with Culture Ireland
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Contemporary, Drama, European Theatre, Feminist Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
After a string of awards in Ireland and an acclaimed run at Edinburgh, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s Lie Low opens at Royal Court’s Upstairs Theatre directed by Oisin Karney till June 8th.
Smyth’s exploration of the mind’s coping with sexual assault shows how everything can seem to distort or in that distortion, discover different truths the observer hasn’t (usually) been broken into enough to see on their own. An outstanding production.
Written by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth, Directed by Oisin Karney, Set and Lighting Design Ciaran Bagnall, Sound Designer Denis Clohessy, Movement Director Paula O’Reilly, Fight Co-ordinator Philip Rafferty, Associate Producer/Production Manager Ronan McManus, Stage Manager Ciara McCarthy-Nolan
Till June 8th
Review
A woman dances with a duck-headed man. It ends badly. “I was having nightmares.” Blandly Faye opens to one doctor the perfectly comprehensible way “an enormous penis would chase me through a meadow full of yellow rubber ducks….”
After a string of awards in Ireland and an acclaimed run at Edinburgh, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s Lie Low opens at Royal Court’s Upstairs Theatre directed by Oisin Karney till June 8th.
Now Faye can’t sleep, has left her veggie meat job and kept to her flat for a year. More nightmarish than absurdist, Lie Low pushes at the boundaries of memory and trauma after an assault. Even here though, there’s enough for Faye to question what happened, deny the nature of her trauma, and find others’ incomprehension or denial echoed in herself.
The Royal Court’s taken up several Edinburgh Fringe productions these past few months; this in association with Prime Cut Productions and Culture Ireland. It’s brought a variety to their programming and shows we mightn’t otherwise see.
Lie Low making its London premiere there in this UK tour is a blast of wobbly confession and uncertain sunlight. In less than 70 minutes, Faye (Charlotte McCurry) registers everything on her face from incredulity and hilarity to stark terror in a moment. Though we end in a blaze it’s not certain where we are on the dial. And quite what we laugh at.
The first doctor (Rory Nolan voiceovers two) certainly, who tries psycho-projecting, gaslighting, seeing what sticks. Bi-polarity, autism, ADHD. Faye dodges these like bullets. “I was broken into a year ago and I was struggling for a bit afterwards. I’m fine now though.” No doctor wants to understand what Faye’s saying: it should be clear.
All Faye eats though is a box of dry Rice Krispies. It’s Smyth’s modulations from the opening dark farce through comedic platitudes that remind one, if anything, of the dark humour of David Ireland in Cyprus Avenue. It’s not quite as thematically relentless, but Smyth skewers trauma and depression with a unique physical comedy. Humour’s a normalising weapon, but this spectacular visual gag cusps nightmare. Faye can’t remember what’s happened, but it could include sexual assault.
It’s only after this Faye recruits her brother, who’s turned up unexpectedly after a year’s absence. Naoise (Thomas Finnegan) might be the ideal safe person to explore ad-hoc exposure therapy: to re-enact the assault.
He’s not keen, putting on a plastic duck head and repeating the act. Naoise though has a pretty devastating secret of his own to divulge, a memory that makes Faye incredulous. There’s things he couldn’t possibly know unless he was there. Their edgy splintered conversation explores that rapid, elliptical world siblings can create: some is shorthand, some layered and difficult to tease out. Some just blank.
As sister and brother explore the past through the agency of their mother’s old dresser where Faye once ran a detective agency as a child, each faces past memories they’ve suppressed or distorted. Yet this dresser is seemingly where a man emerged who traumatised Faye’s life and where her brother has to return.
Ciaran Bagnall’s set and lighting offer just enough to show how spartan Faye’s life is, the swing music (with sound by Denis Clohessy) how loud her dreams. Lighting in particular breathes nightmare or alarming sunshine as well as the night you feel in a dresser – itself irradiated to an ominous Tardis, carving out time. The diminutive space can sweep open like a Tardis too.
The final stretch is a monologue that makes you wonder what the sunshine being turned up actually means. Is it breakthrough or something else? The brilliance of Smyth’s ending is not to allow a settled compass. We have to ask from whose perspective we’ve been seeing this, and whose now? If Faye’s not in her perfect mind, whose mind is? Doctors – admittedly through Faye’s refraction – see predictably keen on shutting her down. Incomprehension sets its own bias and denial.
McCurry’s superb at switching from nervous affirmative to explosive rage as she unearths something. Doubt, deep trauma and garish joy scud across her face. Finnegan is a hunch of self-doubt and slow humiliation (and enduring a most humiliating scene too), someone who seems glumly attuned to his sister’s high energy and low belief in him.
Smyth’s exploration of the mind’s coping with sexual assault shows how everything can seem to distort or in that distortion, discover different truths the observer hasn’t (usually) been broken into enough to see on their own. An outstanding production.
