Outside Mullingar

Set in the recent past on two rural properties in county Westmeath, Ireland, John Patrick Shanley’s Outside Mullingar is basically a romcom of unrequited love between two middle-aged farmers, Anthony and Rosemary, and their quarrelsome parents. But being Irish of course,there’s a lot of talk of death (it opens just after a funeral) and with the constant off-stage sound of rain, rain and more rain, it’s a constantly bleak and gloomy atmosphere.

Although Anthony’s run the farm for decades, his father Tony believes he doesn’t have the soul of the earth in his veins so he cavalierly suggests when he dies he may leave the farm to a relative who lives in America. This devastates the shy Anthony, and inflames the wrath of Rosemary who has loved him from afar since they were kids. In no uncertain terms she tells Tony it’s not going to happen because she holds the title to a tract of land separating the two properties and she’s not giving it up. The father dies (a lovely death-bed scene), Anthony inherits the farm, and ultimately realises he and Rosemary should be together. Fade-out on lover’s clinch!

Although it took a while to warm up, Rod Felsch’s production finally took off in the second act when Meg Hinselwood as Rosemary squared off against Patrick Farrelly’s Anthony. The sparks flew, their (Irish) tempers flared, and we could see the ending just around the corner, but Hinselwood and Farrelly made us work for the denouement with well-timed rapier wit and the author’s lyrical spin on every day language. Brian Hinselwood captured the mordantly ironic Tony with deadpan accuracy which culminated in a tender death bed scene, whilst Penny Murphy’s recently widowed Aoife was a sharp-tongued delight.

At times the rural dialect was difficult to break through, which was not helped by the acoustics of the hall, but by play’s end when the mismatched lovers embraced it didn’t seem to matter.

Outside Mullingar may not have the drama of Shanley’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning Doubt, or the comedy of his Oscar screenplay for Moonstruck, but it does have heart and that’s a big plus.

Peter Pinne