A new addition to Simon Stephens’s catalogue has landed here in Dublin at the Glass Mask Theatre: the post-apocalyptic drama entitled A Slow Fire. It’s a hard play to summarise or categorise, but therein lies its success. There is both a certain claustrophobia and a startling breadth to the show. The production is constricted to two or three characters alone in the one bunker, and somehow manages to construct a visceral world that extends beyond a bunker. The “world-building” that accomplishes that is not typical of a post-apocalyptic narrative arc. In lieu of foregrounding the causes of the preassumed catastrophe, its focus is placed upon the quotidian memories and psychological nuances of our characters. This adds a personal streak to the show which winds up becoming its key feature.
The show’s strength lies in its characterisations, and in the many devices used to unleash character. The principal device utilised was that of performance itself, in tandem with memory being relived. Two isolated men alone in a bunker, thrown together unwillingly, re-enact scenes from their prior lives (private moments of grief, joy, love and failure). In doing this, the play pulls its own existence as theatre to the attention of its audience. A meta-theatrical feat. Identities are successfully blurred and challenged, as our leads are compelled to continually embody the lives of other absent characters. The level to which actors can hide behind or exist within roles is poked and prodded to great effect. It seemed this tool returns within almost every scene, but this was no flaw. The show could have easily stumbled into a comfortable reliance upon humdrum repetition, but instead never fails to develop layer upon layer until the final movement is composed of substantial, lived-in characters and moments.
Much of this is accomplished due to the performances presented by our two leads: Ross Gaynor and Ian Toner as Ashton and Reece. In their presence, the audience receives a frantic sense of frustration and a fraught intimacy that could escape or break any second. They have become fatigued with their dire situation, but too have grown entangled entirely with each other. As they echo each other in this narrow environment, it is clear that they operate in tandem with each other to a great extent. Gaynor and Toner both perfectly deliver that distinct sense of frustration and familiarity. Inhabiting this distinct genre of post-apocalyptic drama, the actors reveal something more fundamental about a human need for dependence, and the dramatic displays of emotion that coincide with that. Owing to their shared vulnerability, you could feel a number of tears falling in the audience as the play came to a close. That was no surprise.
Alongside the play’s frustration and blues, you also experience a sense of fun — fun driven by partial cabin fever, but fun nonetheless. In dialogue with the show’s quieter moments — such as a slow dance or a teary eye — we receive a recurrent levity, especially from Toner’s side. The show never tips into either melodrama or farce — it maintains a neat balance that feels real and unaffected. The plot picks up pace with the entry of Fionn O’Loingsigh’s Presley, breathing a sense of hope and possibility into this miniature world. I must admit that the play somewhat loses its equilibrium around this mark, veering from its psychological intrigue towards a more padded, comfortable set of narrative beats. The show’s confidence in its own silent, meditative weight slightly stumbles in favour of something more straightforward. In saying this, Presley’s arrival is no buzzkill. O’Loingsigh is a clear professional and his role is a shock to the play’s system, providing a new voice to the stuffy and strange atmosphere established by Toner and Gaynor. The three of them manoeuvred the ending in a manner I didn’t anticipate, and the solemnity of the show’s closing piece displays the mastery at work on the part of Simon Stephens.
In a play confined to a singular space and situation, the character-work and performances map out a spacious world of interior complexity. Through gentle set-pieces and meticulous plotting, the show unveils a tremendous fragility at the heart of both hope and despair, at the core of story-telling and memory.
