Review by Grace Cassidy
The Past is Present in Never Closer
Off The Ledge Theatre
Canberra Theatre Centre
It’s Christmas Eve in Northern Ireland. We’ve gathered for a meeting of old ghosts.
Grace Chapple’s play Never Closer offers a window to a troubled moment in time. Set in the 1980s, the story kicks off on an explosive night that changes the course of our characters’ lives, setting each member of a young friend group on a different path. Deirdre (Emily O’Mahoney) is left standing in the wreckage. For ten years, she remains stuck in the house she grew up in, lingering like a tormented spirit at the scene of their death. Deirdre treats the house like a time capsule; her mother’s knick-knacks are untouched. She works at the local school, still goes to the same pub, and despite having every opportunity, she’s never gathered the courage to tell Jimmy (Joel Hrbek) that she loves him. Undeniably, the world seems to be moving on without her, until one fateful Christmas Eve, when something summons all of Deirdre’s old friends to her door.
What’s incredible about this play, expertly directed by Lachlan Houen, is its impressive realism. Dialogue feels like real conversation, with voices overlapping, interrupting, creating cacophonies of noise. The world seems lived in—its friendships and history feel tangible, with the cast moving in each other’s space like they really have known each other their whole lives. It’s challenging to make a play not feel like a play, to make narrative feel real, and this production gets remarkably close to succeeding.
This is, in large part, due to a stellar cast. Staging a script like this is no easy feat; with dialogue that frequently overlaps, actors are required to know their cues with pin-point accuracy. Miss a beat? The illusion shatters. Then, to make matters worse, every line needs to be delivered in a Northern Irish accent, which has such a specific cadence to it that an actor could almost be forgiven for letting emotional expression take a backseat to accurate intonation. Luckily, the cast of this production handles the accents relatively well, though some of them seem to be from slightly different parts of Northern Ireland. The only cast members who are (mostly) spared the fate of maintaining this incredibly specific accent are Tash Lyall as Niamh, Deirdre’s estranged best friend, and Pippin Carroll as Harry, Niamh’s (scandalously, disastrously) English boyfriend. Both actors get to spend most of the performance using southern English accents, which are a much easier jump for most Australian actors.
Harry is actually a highlight of the show. Carroll crafts a lovely performance as a slightly bumbling, generally well-meaning fish out of water. While he makes a handful of gratingly prejudiced remarks, he mostly provides some wonderful moments of comedic relief when tensions rise among the old friend group. Niamh’s return from London, with a brand new English accent and even more English boyfriend, is met with reactions that range from simmering discomfort to abject fury. It’s a disaster and it’s what drives our story forward, ultimately jarring Deirdre from her stagnated existence.
O’Mahoney as Deirdre is a strong, grounding lead. Throughout the production, she carries a tension in her shoulders and a vulnerability in her expression that ties the story together. Her white-knuckled countenance is complemented by the calm, compelling performance of Hrbek as Jimmy who, as Deirdre’s love interest, seems to balance her out. Another foil to Deirdre’s tense demeanour is Lyall as Niamh, who is calm and loving, but distant in the way of old friends who have moved on with their lives. The flip-side of this is Breanna Kelly’s heart-wrenching portrayal of Mary, who has always perceived herself as less-liked in the friend group. It’s painful to watch her love her friends so dearly, while clearly feeling that her affection isn’t totally reciprocated. Thankfully, Kelly is a gifted comedian and breaks up this performance with wonderful moments of dry humour. Meanwhile, Nick Bisa as Conor is the wild card. His character is a piece of the puzzle that no longer fits—the spark that threatens to light the old friend group ablaze.
In many ways, Never Closer is a familiar story. It harnesses a classic narrative structure and it does it well. Major character moments feel earned. Twists might be foreshadowed, but they aren’t totally predictable. A character getting stuck in the past is something audiences have most definitely seen before, but it’s a story that’s told and retold for a reason. Sometimes people get stuck, in toxic cycles, in bad relationships, inside their own head. Courage doesn’t always come easy; in fact, it’s often hard won. It’s good to be reminded of the value in finding hope. There’s a power in being able to shrug off the weight of the past and look for something new.
