You just have to admire the tenacity of Cork’s Everyman Palace they way it has provided theatre this summer in the absence of Cork Opera House. You should also admire their fine support for new work and shared productions with other venues. Chicane is such new work a three-hander fast paced thriller that has the surprise element of twists and a killer twist right at the very end.
The author, actor Anthony Brophy has written a play that with some adjustment would make a fine hour long TV drama.
An initial slow exposition with some frighteningly realistic gun shots takes on a what-will-happen-next as a seemingly ordinary but chatty male cleaner turns on a middle-of-the-road over-worked lawyer and accuses him of murdering his baby daughter in a Wicklow hit and run where friendship with a judge gets the case quashed.
Not it handcuffs, gunshots and a grinning psychopath who lures the lawyers wife to the office only to find out she’s a mistress not a spouse.
Brophy is at times too clever and maybe there is a twist or shock too many but it was a good nights work from a fine trio with the Guna Nua theatre group under the tight direction of Paul Meade.
Barry Barnes was a weasel of a lawyer with poor moral values. Jane McGrath was edgy as the girl and Emmet Kirwan was a wild eyed psychopath who relished the role and unveiled the twists with a gleam in his eye.
Perhaps by the end it was a twist too far but this was a fine play by a fine playwright.
