Boys and Girls
Pearse Centre
*****
To the hand-wringers who see the slow death of culture in each new generation grinding art into mulch or, worse still, letting their powers of creation begin to sag under cheap communications of LOLS and hashtags (never mind the “frapes”), this stunning Dublin hymn makes it seem like sour grapes. If you want brave new writing, here is your salvation.
With sensational flow, four young speakers deliver Dylan Coburn Gray's verse to us, a conceit we should know from Mark O'Rowe's Terminus. But here there's no mythic adventure, no need to go beyond the genuine texture of a generation's concerns, which – let's face it – are pretty standard-grade: booze, drugs and trying to get laid. The difference is in how they express it; frankly, internally, with every word in the dictionary, the voice of the moment turned into pure poetry. The title screams Blur, but Kerouac knew the mess (Boys and Girls have "such a sad time together") from the chase to the catch to post-coital tristesse. Without getting prim, though, Gray honours virtue: his wit is quite lacerating, but the truth shouldn't hurt you, and he dares to be romantic in a time full of cynics. Maybe it's not theatrical, but the rhyme's not a gimmick, and however simple the shape of his stage is, that talent, like this subject, belongs to the ages.
Ends Sep 21
