When Edna O’Brien published her first novel, The Country Girls, it was greeted with outrage. The Ireland of 1960 was shocked by O’Brien’s frank discussion of the sex lives of the novel’s two main characters, Kate and Baba. The novel was banned; in some places, it was burned. Despite this – in some ways, perhaps, because of it – The Country Girls became firmly established in the Irish literary canon. Red Kettle’s world premiere, directed by the inimitable Mikel Murfi, has been adapted for the stage by O’Brien herself: expectations may be measured in meters.
And high expectations are sometimes hard to meet. The average novel has a rough word count of 100,000 words; the average play, 30,000. When one is adapted to the other, there is a certain amount of inevitable condensing of plot, themes and characters that must happen. This production suffered somewhat from the fact of abridgment; the novel follows Kate and Baba, the two country girls of the title from before they enter their convent school to their life in Dublin as young women. In an effort to include all, one feels that perhaps this was a case of butter spread over too much bread. Murfi’s exuberant direction saw a lively and constant swirl of activity as the story unfolded, but the quieter, more intense moments lacked impact when it felt there should have been a veritable emotional punch, simply because there was not enough time given to the investment in these characters.
However, Murfi’s cast never lagged in their onstage energy, giving an impressively strong ensemble performance as they doubled and tripled as distinct characters. Holly Browne’s Kate is textbook sweet, but stops short of cliché in the powerful moments when her naiveté sees her sitting among the morning after’s crumpled newspapers and rubbish. Kate’s counterpart, Baba, is played to raucous and in-spite-of-yourself lovable perfection by Caoimhe O’Malley. Murfi’s trademark physicality can be seen in the cast’s economic synchronicity of movement, and in the tongue-in-cheek flourishes of humour.
Trevor Knight’s score lent a rich aural background to the action, with Irish songs punctuating time, place and action. Ben Hennessy’s set was less evocative. Bare, with two white structures whose height was used only twice in the play, and a baffling chaise longue that served as all seats, the set was also rather heavy handed. A large, hanging Virgin Mary statue served as a not-so-subtle reminder of the Catholic times that Kate and Baba were reaching womanhood in; a fact that could not have been escaped in either plot or action. Leonore McDonagh’s costumes are colorful and beautifully put together, evoking the range of dress in ‘60s Ireland from country to city.
Ultimately, The Country Girls is a sad, funny, coming-of-age play that does tell a genuine and moving story. It was well acted and well directed. But one wonders whether this adaptation is coming several decades too late; for this is no longer a story that shocks; it is not even one that surprises.
Country Girls runs until November 12th.
Clara Kumagai
