Conor McPherson

On Christmas Eve in Dublin two brothers, Sharkey and Richard, have a few friends over for cards. Richard has recently gone blind after hitting his head dumpster diving. Sharkey is trying to quit drinking. The friends aren’t much better off. Their lives are all messy. They all drink way too much.

Unknown to all but Sharkey, Satan, disguised as a Mr. Lockhart, accompanies one of the friends. And he wants to collect a soul – specifically Sharkey’s. The all-night game leaks into Christmas morning and the outcome will determine Sharkey’s fate.… (mehr)

(Seen 22 March 2014 at Wyndham's Theatre, London)

This play is set in a bar in a rural village in present day Ireland, an area that is shielded from big city Dublin to the southeast but is a popular holiday spot for European tourists due to its natural beauty. Two of the bar's regular customers, Jack, a garage owner in his fifties, and his assistant and general handyman Jim, in his forties, along with the bar owner, Brendan, in his thirties, all unmarried men, are excited yet perturbed by the news that an attractive young woman from Dublin will move into a long unoccupied house in town, and that she will be coming to the bar to meet the locals. Valerie is accompanied by Finbar, a former resident who has moved away from the village but owns much of the property there, including the house he sold to her. Finbar, though married, is a bit of a dandy, and is viewed as an outsider and somewhat of a traitor by the other men, in part because he attracts women like bees to honey.

The four men all vie for Valerie's attention, and three of them each tell a story about the village to impress her. These tales are village legends, with an uncertain amount of truth and a surreal, ghostly and unsettling ending, including one set in the house that Valerie has just moved into. The men regret their tales and are concerned that they may have unnerved Valerie. However, she feels liberated by their accounts, and proceeds to tell them a "ghost" story from her past that puts theirs to shame.

The Weir was originally written in 1997, won the Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Olivier awards for Best New Play, and established [[Conor McPherson]] as one of the great young playwrights. This revival, which is playing at Wyndham's Theatre until 19 April, stars Risteárd Cooper (Finbar), Dervla Kirwan (Valerie), Ardal O'Hanlon (Jim), Brian Cox (Jack) and Peter McDonald (Brendan). It was richly infused with humor, friendship, loss and despair, yet hope and a sense of community shone through the sorrow like the sun peeking through storm clouds. I thoroughly enjoyed this production, aand would highly recommend it to anyone who can see it in London before it closes next month, or elsewhere.… (mehr)