Cyprus Avenue (Abbey Theatre and Royal Court Theatre co-production at The Public) by David Ireland #cyprusavenue

When we first meet Stephen Rea’s Eric he appears to be a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis.  Living on Cyprus Avenue, in a nice part of Dublin with his wife, Bernie (Andrea Irvine), daughter, Julie (Amy Molloy) and Julie’s infant daughter, he is an Irish Protestant who doesn’t consider himself Irish and who is stewing in a soup of political disillusionment, rage and bigotry.  When the first question he asks the counselor, Bridget (Ronke Adekoluejoa) is, “why are you a n.....r?”, the stage is set for a series of questions, confrontations and horrors that took my breath away.

Eric’s seemingly unremarkable life is turned upside down when, one day, he sees Jerry Adams in his infant granddaughter’s face.  To Eric, this is akin to seeing the devil and in trying to convince himself, and others, that the resemblance is authentic, he puts eyeglasses (from Build a Bear) on and uses a black marker to draw a beard on his granddaughter.  Needless to say, this elicits a fury from his wife and daughter and drives him to a park where he is accosted by Slim (Chris Corrigan) a gun-toting punk who, it turns out, shares Eric’s bigoted political ideologies.  These men hatch a heinous plan, the fruition of which will turn tragic for all involved.

Told in flashbacks, elicited by questions to Eric from Bridget, this is a story that travels through time.  Time has become Eric’s enemy.  He longs for the days when his identification as British, as opposed to Irish (those Catholic bastards), was not only understood, but applauded by a huge swath of like-minded souls.  He longs for the sense of belonging that partisanship fosters.  He yearns to be a member of the group that has the answers and knows who the enemy is.

Mr. Rea’s performance is searing.  The seeming innocence, the absolute conviction of his ‘rightness’ in which his Eric swaths his atrocities is so at odds with the horrific deeds he perpetrates that it feels like an hallucination.  Eric sees himself, first and foremost, as a victim; of circumstance, of a changing world, of people who just don’t understand.

Ms. Adekoluejoa is terrific as the counselor who is trying to lead Eric to the reality of what he has done.  Her Bridget is the calm, courteous, eminently civil captain of the ship which she, relentlessly, steers toward the shores of truth.

Mr. Ireland’s writing is filled with, surprisingly, light and clever moments.  You will laugh and you will gasp and you may cry.  This is the writing of dark drama that demands emotional response.  It is not easy, but it is fantastic.

As hard as it can be to watch, what stands out to me most about Cyprus Avenue is that is takes a look at the lengths to which people, who have spent a lifetime soaking in culturally approved bigotry, prejudice and hatred, will go to rid their worlds of those they consider ‘the enemy’.  It speaks, loudly, to the world in which we live.