Cyprus Avenue Review
David Ireland’s play Cyprus Avenue is an extraordinary mix of one’s struggle for identity in an ever-changing world and the interior monologue of an unraveling man. The plot centers around Eric Miller (Stephen Rea), a Belfast Loyalist, who seems to be having a difficult time coping with his relationship to his country and the present day. The play begins in a setting that we’ve all seen before. Miller is in therapy explaining to his therapist what has caused the series of events that led him here. After a rambling explanation to his therapist, played by Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo, that he is not Irish but rather British from Ireland, inviting a roar of laughter from the crowd, he begins to tell his story. It began when he was spending time with his newborn granddaughter and he saw, in this baby, the Irish Sinn Féin party leader, Gerry Adams.
A series of longwinded, racist slurs and insensitive reasonings shocks the audience into laughter. Perhaps this is meant to further recognize the ways in which the character Eric Miller is far removed from the reality of the situation he is in and cannot relate to the sensibilities of the younger generation. We watch as his character plunges further into the absurdity of his own realities which eventually leads to the brutal and violent acts that jolt the audience out of their complacent laughter and lands the character Eric Miller into a mandated psychological institution.
Stephen Rea’s likability in his portrayal of Eric Miller provides a stark contrast between the audience’s relationship to the character and the horrific acts he commits. He has an incredible ability to provoke emotion within the audience whether that be in laughter or in shock. While the rest of the cast’s performances compliments his character well, they are not meant to do much else. They’re meant to provide the backstory of this particular man’s interior dialogue and they do just that.
The set design is simple— a white rug with two white couches on either corner of the stage. The color and the seeming permanence of these set pieces gave the audience a sense of false security. Over the course of the show, the addition of dirt, trash and blood to stains to the carpet breaks down both the audience’s trust in the pristine nature of the set, but also our trust in the mind of the narrator at work.
Additionally, the structure of the theater in the round, with audience members on both sides, draws the audience closer together. Every reaction that we have happens communally whether that be in laughter or in disgust.
This combination creates a theater going experience that sticks with the viewer long after bows have been taken and the curtain has been pulled shut. Questions of identity, mental illness and the extreme things we will do, say and tolerate even when we know we’re wrong will linger in the days and weeks that follow.
