The Weir assessment – There’s just one response to seeing Brendan Gleeson | Theatre | Entertainment | EUROtoday

In a present shaded with supernatural chills, it hardly appears actual that the lead actor has by no means set foot within the West End earlier than. At 70, Brendan Gleeson has been dazzling us on screens huge and small for many years however not everybody could make the transition to London’s phases.

I’m desperately unhappy to report that, based mostly on his efficiency right here, we now have been completely robbed for much too lengthy.

Set in a distant native pub within the wilds of Country Leitrim within the mid-90s, the Irish star is magnificently, magnetically vivid – as craggy, crevassed and weatherbeaten because the panorama we think about past the partitions. He sweeps us into Conor McPherson’s meandering, melancholy play as absolutely because the winds we hear howling outdoors which have pushed 5 souls to take shelter collectively.

As the night time slowly, fantastically unwinds, it turns into clear that every is definitely searching for shelter from life, loss and, most piercingly, their very own ghosts.

Gleeson’s bachelor Jack owns the native storage, which is changing into out of date, and employs dopey Jim (Séan McGinley), who cares for his ailing mom and will get all one of the best one-liners, deployed with sleepy precision. Both are significantly aged up from McPherson’s textual content however it solely provides to the pathos.

Ludicrous wheeler-dealer Finbar (a manically over-egged Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) lords it over everybody whereas desperately searching for their approval and ineptly sleazing over engaging newcomer Valerie (Miss Scarlet star Kate Phillips). The ruggedly stoic Brendan (Owen McDonnell) tends bar. All ache with loneliness.

On a gorgeously evocative set, the superbly pitched mundane chitchat fantastically colors of their characters earlier than every, besides Brendan, tells a ghost story based mostly on native occasions. Starting with Jack, the boys’s tales develop into progressively extra actual and nearer to dwelling earlier than Valerie’s heartbreaking flip.

Very little of direct consolation or connection is ever stated between any of them, however McPherson is a grasp at what’s unsaid. Beautifully paced within the fingers of a wonderful solid, silences communicate volumes. Banter and countless rounds of drink convey what males so usually can’t, Kate is wrapped in Jack’s arms.

Jack closes the night time with a second story, this time a recollection of his misplaced love. Quietly, devastatingly delivered, it haunted me lengthy after the curtain fell they usually all disappeared again into the storm.

THE WEIR AT THE HAROLD PINTER THEATRE TO DECEMBER 8