Play: A Skull in Connemara

Partly because of our underwhelming eating experience last time we attended an event at the University Concert Hall, we decided to eat at home this evening, and just left in time for the play. So we arrived in plenty of time, parked quite close to the entrance, collected our tickets, and got ourselves a couple of ice creams. There was less people-watching to do tonight, it wasn't nearly as full.

My mother noticed someone getting some Tayto crisps, and asked me whether I wanted some - but it wasn't until someone at the next table, directly in my line of sight, got some that I felt the urge. Well, isn't there something just irresistible about the rustling of a crisp packet? Sadly, this turns out to be the second-most expensive place I know of to buy them. €1.50 on Aer Lingus flights, €1.30 at the concert hall, €1.10 from vending machines at Shannon airport, 70c over the counter at Shannon airport. Of course, in the first two cases, you have a captive audience..

Our seats tonight were right along the row from where we were on Wednesday night, and my mother preferred them - might have had something to do with the fact that, tonight, we were seated directly at the top of an aisle, so fewer heads in our line of sight. We certainly had good seats, but then, the concert hall doesn't really have any bad ones.

A Skull in Connemara is the second in the Leenane trilogy, by Martin McDonagh. He's best known for plays set in the west of Ireland, of which this is one. A very black comedy, it centres on a gravedigger whose wife died just over seven years ago, as a passenger in the car he was driving while drunk. Lack of space in the graveyard has led to a church rule that, after seven years, bodies can be exhumed to make space for new arrivals. Turns out that the time has come for his wife's grave to be exhumed. But a number of questions arise - What does he do with the bones he exhumes? What will he find when he finds the courage to dig up his wife's grave? And just what did happen when his wife died, seven years ago?

It's not the best of McDonagh's plays, and there's some, eh, bone-smashing that goes on at length, producing a cloud of dust that might not be very pleasant for those in the front several rows. Also, although I didn't really have a problem, a number of people around us complained of not being able to hear very well. Anyway, if you can get past all that, there are some really funny moments. This production was more.. ponderous than the last version of this that I saw. I barely remember seeing it the first time - which is handy, as I didn't really remember the plot at all - but I do believe that the first version I saw was an amateur production. I suppose that this is the more serious version! It's such a madcap play that I do wonder whether a fast and furious approach mightn't work better..

And the last of this week's outings is tomorrow afternoon, when we go to see Noye's Fludde, by Britten, at St. Mary's Cathedral, Limerick. Afterwards, we're thinking of checking out the culinary options just across the road. Now, I just have to research the parking options - it's a while since I did anything in this part of town!