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Its scarier when Godotdoesshow up.
Last year the theater presented his playArlington.
Now hes back with another dystopian fable named for a cryptic locale.
A colder play,Arlingtonwas interesting to contemplate in retrospect, butBallyturkis thrilling in the moment.
So, what is Ballyturk the place and the play?
It also doesnt exist.
In other words, its another bleakly farcical little planet in the Enda-verse.
Walsh is a playwright with an unshakable, or as yet unshaken, preoccupation.
Do bunnies definitely have legs, by the way?
We decided on five, replies 2.
If every day is the same, what happens to concepts of time?
(What do you mean by weekly?
says 1 in innocent bewilderment, later in the play.)
Either by choice or compulsion, Walshs characters tend to be raconteurs.
This is 1, the spectacular, tightly coiled Tadhg Murphy.
He holds a knife.
He rails at the sky, squinting into the spotlight and competing with the drone.
But 1s theatrics end in an absurd anticlimax.
This is 2 (Mikel Murfi in a schlubby-clown performance thats frantically funny and moving by turns).
Nothing, 1 laments to 2 bitterly, sending echoes of Vladimir and Estragon through the theater.
Whatever 1 was hoping to achieve with the tale of Larry Aspen, it didnt happen.
Once again, Godot hasnt come.
Is 3 responsible for 1 and 2s imprisonment?
Is she some sort of government agent or voyeur or scientist studying these two lab rats?
Is she Death incarnate?
Walsh is bravely and effectively ambivalent.
These childlike scribbled faces, streets, and landmarksareBallyturk.
After all, between their forays into Ballyturk, 1 and 2 can hear voices through the walls.
Surely someone knows theyre in here.
Surely someone will hear them, will let them out.
Of course, when 3 arrives, bringing with her the possibility of freedom, its a bitter bargain.
In a life that is so chaotically structured by nature its a miracle that requires a sacrifice.
Her arrival shatters the world of these two hapless, histrionic clowns especially 1.
Theres no freedom to it its filling a room with words, not real life … so how?
The act of storytelling, our human ability to create worlds within words, both captivates and terrifies Walsh.
Inside the theater hearts might break, but outside they might, and will, stop.
Like Beckett, Walsh turns theatrical examinations of stuckness into exegeses on the art of playmaking.
Ballyturkis at St. Anns Warehouse through January 28.
