Bailed Out!
Pavilion Theatre
***
Bailed Out! is less a piece of theatre than an act of civic duty. It is performed on a barely dressed stage, which is suggestive of a boardroom, an office and a telephone exchange in turn. The actors, dressed in business suits, read from scripts. There are no lighting cues, and for most of the 90-minute performance the actors address the audience directly, whether they are reading transcripts from interviews, headlines from newspapers or dialogue from real or imagined scenes.
Bailed Out! is a sequel to Guaranteed!, which dramatised the events leading up to the 2008 bank guarantee. When that play was first performed in 2013, the ramifications of those decisions were still being played out. As the Oireachtas continues its banking inquiry, the same urgency attends Bailed Out! The rough theatrical style is as much a necessity as an aesthetic choice: the "real" script of history is still being written.
There are some dramatic scenarios within the play that have reached their climax (or nadir). The shadow of Brian Lenihan’s death, in particular, hangs over the play. Although he remains alive in the final moments, his imminent demise is a chilling metaphor for the country’s fate.
The elision also reminds us of the playwright at work. Colin Murphy, a journalist by trade, does a terrific job in juxtaposing the documentary material to maximum dramatic effect. Scenes in Brussels are placed side by side with unfolding events in Ireland, allowing audiences to appreciate the ironies and absurdities of the deliberately evasive rhetoric being used by the government.
Indeed, Fishamble’s production, directed by Conall Morrison, elicits many laughs, but each one is more bitter than sweet.
While much of the material will be familiar to an audience that has lived through these challenging times, there is pleasure in hearing well-documented delusions being deflated by reality. The real function of a performance like this has nothing to do with theatrical standards. Bailed Out! is the story of our lives.
Until October 4th
