BURNT Out begins on a simple premise but through darkly comic undertones it exposes the insanity, hypocrisy and unresolved conflict which still lurks beneath the surface of society in the North today.
The play begins happily enough: Teacher Michael (Terence Keeley) and his wife, successful hairdresser Cheryl (Kerri Quinn), have just moved into a new home and are debating whether to have a baby.
In a flip on gender roles, it's Cheryl who wears the trousers in the relationship and she isn't interest in having children, a feeling which is compounded when we meet Michael's family.
Michael's brother Donny, brilliantly played by Caolán Byrne, is the perfect caricature of a loyalist thug. He's misogynistic, violent, extremely sectarian and he drops the bombshell which kick-starts the paranoia and intimidation at the heart of the play – the couple's new home is right opposite a giant loyalist bonfire and he wants to know whether it was them who have made a complaint about it to the PSNI.
Donny (Caolán Byrne) perfectly conveys the insecurities at the heart of the loyalist identity
Playwright Gary Mitchell and director Jimmy Fay do a brilliant job of creating an atmosphere of intimidation and terror and also highlighting the incompetence of the police who cause more problems than solutions for the couple and seem more intent on investigating whether or not the couple's dog has shit near the bonfire than the fact the couple are living under a nightly siege by loyalist youths.
The play portrays some autobiographical elements as well, as playwright Gary Mitchell was himself intimidated out of his home in Rathcoole by loyalists after they became suspicious of his success as a playwright and the fact that nationalists enjoyed his work. In interviews he has said he and his family were forced to lie low for five years before he began working again in theatre and screen.
The play touches on many issues – how policing doesn't help ordinary people when the perpetrators are left to carry on as normal; the inferiority victim complex at the heart of loyalist culture, which is brilliantly displayed by Donny who feels threatened by a strong woman like Cheryl and who also blames the Catholics for everything; and also the culture of preying on your own community – Donny making the offer that if the couple fork out a few grand, he can get the kids to stop torturing them.
This all climaxes in a brutal ending which left the audience on the edge of their seats.
The play shows how rumours and speculation can end up having horrific results
The pacing and acting from all the actors was brilliant and at times you didn't know whether it was more apt to laugh or cry. It's a play that I believe makes perfect sense to those of us who have grown up in the North but I think unless you've experienced the normalised madness of life here it might not translate that well beyond these shores.
The acting was top class, the sound effects both terrifying and haunting and the set design simple yet powerful. Burnt Out is a powerful, darkly comic and excellent play and one that perfectly sums up the many contradictions and fallacies which are still present in political identities in the North.
Burnt Out can be seen from 7 October to 4 November at The Lyric Theatre.
Tickets can be bought here.
