The Times, London 2002
Say Nothing reviewed by Sam Marlowe
Like Beckett, Jon Hough and David Woods understand that gripping drama is as much about what is unsaid as what is said. And their stripped-down theatricality could not be better suited to tackling the subject-matter of Say Nothing – the circuitous, stymied Northern Ireland peace process.
Hough and Woods, aka two-man tour de force Ridiculusmus, make an odd couple. Woods is tall, chunky and shiny of pate; Hough is slight and frail-looking. Dressed in suits, they stand side by side in a suitcase stuffed with turf. Without stepping out of it in this 70-minute performance, they conjure the bitter, funny and sad tale of one man’s efforts to make a difference in a place where everyone will talk to him about anything except what is really happening.
Kevin is a British-educated Ulsterman. Armed with a PhD in Peace and Conflict Resolution, he has returned to run a series of workshops to encourage communication between the opposing communities. Sally, his softly spoken landlady, rather than listen to his uncomfortable truths, constantly tries to stop his mouth with greasy full Irish breakfasts and cups of tea.
And then there’s Frank the caretaker, a barking bulldog of an Orangeman, who delivers his spittle-flecked invective into Kevin’s face with such violence and in such a strong accent that it’s sometimes almost impossible to understand what he’s saying.
The tiny suitcase stage points up the grim absurdity of so much senseless suffering. And it is a striking evocation of how Irish communities everywhere cling with misguided patriotism to a notion of their homeland — even if they have lived all their lives overseas and have no real idea of what Ireland is actually like.
Hough and Woods also savage misty-eyed myths of Irishness propagated by holiday brochures and the media. Mary, Frank’s wife, witters about how she read in a magazine that “Belfast is the new Prague”, and Kevin tops Sally’s list of “traditional” Irish treats, such as Ballygowan water and Bailey’s, by snarling “traditional Irish Mexican bean burger, traditional Irish pipe bomb”.
Say Nothing is not only searing satire, it’s great theatre. Sam Marlowe
Related pages:
.. Daily Telegraph, London 2002 .. The Guardian, London 2002