New Diorama, London
Irish drama was until recently dominated by male voices. But Teresa Deevy, along with Lady Gregory, was a shining exception. Deevy wrote a string of hits for the Dublin Abbey in the 1930s, only to find this little-known piece cursorily rejected in 1942 – whether because of directorial misogyny or a law forbidding married women to work is not clear. What is extraordinary is that Deevy, although deaf since the age of 20, turned into a prolific radio dramatist.
Given that Deevy's stage career was curtailed by the establishment, one is reminded of the Scottish dramatist Ena Lamont Stewart, whose Men Should Weep recently triumphed at the National. Deevey's play is not quite on that level, but she has a similar quality to Stewart: an ability to write about people without patronising or sentimentalising them. Her setting is a small Irish midlands town, and she follows the fortunes of the titular James. We first see him as a cocky young lad setting off to make his name in Dublin. He returns home seven years later, sets up a thriving bus company and finds himself confronting three potential wives: the dependable Kate, the flighty, middle-class Nora and his old sweetheart, Nan, who is now an impoverished young widow. You never feel confident he will make the right choice.
As an instinctive feminist, Deevy wrote about a world where women were defined by marriage and men by their career. What strikes me even more is how she pins down a subject Conor McPherson was to develop in The Weir: the emotional inhibition of the small-town Irish male. James seems a sad case; he is incapable of articulating his feelings for Nan and is prepared to see her go to prison for an act of petty theft. Socially, Nan is the play's victim, in that shockingly little provision is made for young widows. But, with unusual empathy, Deevy suggests that sexual inequality damages men just as badly, as it leaves them thinking that business success is an adequate substitute for private fulfilment.
Gavin McAlinden's lively production for Charm Offensive fits snugly into this attractive 80-seat theatre. Mark Hesketh captures neatly the hero's strange mix of bumptiousness and diffidence, but the real acting honours go to the women. Ailish Symons conveys Nan's transition from teenage dazzler to pinched-faced widow with heartbreaking accuracy and Siobhán McSweeney is very good as the sisterly Kate who hides her disappointments under joviality. No masterpiece has been revealed: simply a play that records the consequences of living in an unjust world with exemplary freshness.