David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue, directed by Vicky Featherstone, is a joint production with Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. Irish playwrights have a long tradition of mixing comedy and violence.
Eric, a Belfast Loyalist, still living in the past and fighting old battles, is so deeply disturbed that he is convinced his 5-week old baby granddaughter is Gerry Adams. He hates Republicans and Catholics and argues that without racial prejudice the Ulster Protestants are nothing and they won’t survive.
His resentment, disappointment, false expectations and ruined dreams have made him paranoid about losing his identity: “I am not,” he says,” and never have been nor ever will be Irish.”
But what terrifies Eric most is that he might be Irish and that his entire existence has been an elaborate lie driven by the force of history. His confusion, despair and madness are brilliantly brought out by Stephen Rea, who is comic yet ineffably real and sad. Finally, the black farce turns so horrific that suddenly nobody is laughing anymore.