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The Night Alive Critique

When I walked into City Theatre to see The Night Alive I expected to be blown
away. In the time leading up to the show multiple people espoused Conor McPherson
as one the best living playwrights. Being a playwright myself, I was excited. After leaving
the theatre that night, I had my doubts about his standing. Dont get me wrong, the play
was a solid piece of work, but in the end, the night was not so alive. While the show did
contain the elements of drama, they werent employed well and Im not sure whether the
fault lies in the writing or the production.
Lets talk about the spectacle of the show, the stage. The stage was the best part
of the whole performance. I fell into the world created by it without question because of
its subtle mix of realism and abstraction. The main portion of the stage realistically
depicted a dilapidated Dublin bedroom. It even had working water, radio, lights, and
French doors along with beautiful stained glass windows. Abstracted elements, which I
noticed first, were within the floor and the ceiling really sold the stage. Instead of the
room floor being cut in half or being a simple stage floor, which happens in many
productions, individual floorboards were staggered at the edge, extending towards the
audience like fingers to pull them into the show. The ceiling was similar, instead of
having no ceiling or a full ceiling, the production made the walls slowly melt from a ratty
wallpaper to dark 2x4s until it reached what would have been the ceiling. From there
only sections of support beams were scattered above the audience. This abstractions
allowed for stars to be seen in the background and overall gave a surreal feeling to the

play when attention was drawn to it. Such attention to details shows the thought that
went into the stage that had to have been the main focus of the productions producers.
While the stage was fantastic, the plot was not as enjoyable. The plot was simple
enough to follow: the inciting incident was when an older man, Tommy, who lived in a
shared home with his Uncle, saved a young woman, Aimee, from an abusive boyfriend
at a bar. He brings her home to patch her up and allows her to stay until she feels safe,
which seems to be for quite a while. During this time, the audience sees how a
relationship forms in a rather awkward situation. They also see what helping a stranger
can lead to when Doc and later Tommy and Aimee are attacked by Kenneth. One of the
biggest issues with the plot is that it skipped over large chunks of time. The audience
spends more time trying figure out how far forward the play jumped and in return how
long Aimee, Tommy, and Docs relationship has progressed than the story. The majority
of the play acted only as a vehicle to present the major plot points, mainly where
Kenneth is involved, instead of telling any complete story.
The issues with the plot also affected how the audience interprets it and makes it
hard to understand what was the theme of the show. My best guess, the play is a
commentary on life and death. Doc was attacked and presumed dead by the audience
for a section of the play, Maurice was still getting over the death of his wife, Kenneth
was killed, and Aimee threatens to kill herself. There was a whole monologue towards
the end of the play that talks about how when you die, you wont even know it. The
theme could also be about how naivety gets a person in trouble. Tommy tries to help
Aimee, which only brings him and Doc trouble: Docs innocence almost gets him killed
with Kenneth visits and Aimee steals Tommys heart and plans on taking his money.

Either way, I will acknowledge, that playwriting styles between American and Ireland
are different, so if it took me a few days to figure out the theme I understand. The
problem lies in the fact that after a week of thinking about it, I have only the vaguest
idea of the theme. For many people, that mean the play failed.
Finally, there is the most important part of the production, the characters, and by
extension the actors. The actors as a whole were mediocre. As with the whole play, Im
not sure if this is the writing or the actors themselves, since a characters is 50 percent
writing and 50 percent acting. By no means were they horrible, but they all had their
issues, most noticeably, their Irish accents. Many of the accents came across as forced,
especially Aimee and Kenneth. The characters also seemed like they werent pushed
far enough by either the actor or McPherson. The majority of them fell flat, even though
they all grew and had character arcs, save for Doc. And oddly enough, the only one
believable on was Doc, played by Ciaran Byrne. Doc was a character that could easily
been made a caricature. Byrne made him believable and sympathetic whereas the other
characters are just present. While far behind Doc, Tommy was the next most believable
character, but that was probably because the audiences spend the most time with him.
The actor, Rod Brogan focused on his role, but there were points where his emotion and
motions seemed forced, and is arc was simply him saying out loud who he was to
Maurice versus any real development. Then there was Aimee whose development
comes across as an afterthought. It seems like McPherson only puts her there to be a
sexual symbol and a damsel in distress, even though her character had a lot more to
offer, and threw in random points to make her more likeable. For example, McPherson,
from the middle of nowhere the audience finds out that Aimee had a daughter that she

was trying to find her. The point is never brought up again. The entire character just
doesnt sit right. Its like McPherson realized he should probably have a woman in the
role and threw together a person instead of taking time to create her. The rest were
caricatures: Kenneth was the bully who was really nothing else and Maurice was a
crotchety old man who had lost his wife. They were just there to fill a predetermined role
which shows lack of writing ability on McPhersons part.
Overall, the play failed to blow me away. I was expecting to walk away from the
show questioning my reality or the world, and I simply left confused and disappointed by
the writing and the characters. While it was interesting to watch, nothing sat right with
me and the elements of drama were not used to their fullest. If my expectations hadnt
been set so high, I may view this play differently, but that cant be changed, so until I
see the show again in different circumstances, Im not impressed.