Barry McKinley’s poignant one-man play, adapted from his short story by the same name, arrives at the intimate theatre located above Bewleys Cafe. The stage is almost bare, save for a backdrop of rolling waves. Under dim lights, this seascape appears deceptively gentle, a stark contrast to the turbulent journey it represents for our main, and only, character.
This character is Ali, brought to life with captivating vulnerability and energy by Randy Guine, a French-Cameroonian actor making his debut on the Irish stage. 34 years old, he was sent from Morocco by his family to escape his brutal destiny seventeen years ago; he is ‘half Irish’. But this identity is a legal fiction, the tension between nationality and ‘home’ that forms the core of this play.
Ali is a masterful storyteller, he dances, tells jokes, and cracks wise about his adopted homeland, painting vivid pictures of Dublin as a double-sided coin. George Street has been both a place of community and overt danger; Ireland is a nation full of kind men who offer help and violent men who have kept him in cages or worse.
However, Ali’s time in Ireland is up. He is being deported, escorted back across the oceans he once had to cross in search of safety. The script cleverly and often humorously unpacks this nightmare, including Ali’s desperate attempt to avoid deportation with a bomb threat on the plane meant to carry him ‘home’.
The question of ‘home’ is at the very centre of this play. It interrogates the concept of belonging. In response to the phrase “Ireland is full”, Almost Home asks “Full for whom?”. The fact that Ali’s escorts are an Englishman and an Irishman forces the audience to confront uncomfortable questions about which immigrants are welcome and which are turned away, despite Ireland’s own history of emigration and struggle against oppression.
Almost Home casts both a critical and loving eye on Ireland, from a man who is considered an outsider but has known no other country for almost two decades. A man who can appreciate the Irish rain, unlike so many of its natives. This is a deeply humanising piece of theatre that offers a profound insight into the reality of migration, not for the state or system, but for the individual life caught in its gears. In both Ali’s defiance and apprehension, we see the face of a man who is seemingly almost home.
