More than just a monologue, Irish writer/performer Pat Kinevane’s award-winning one-man show, Silent, features a dash of dance, some pre-recorded dialogue, and a pinch of puppetry. It tells the story of Tino McGoldrig (Kinevane), a homeless man on the streets of Dublin who, as the play opens – on a street, or possibly inside Tino’s head – emerges from beneath a blanket wearing tails and dramatic eyeliner. Addressing the audience in a conversational manner, he tells us his story, and the story of his brother, Pearse, a young gay man, who was eventually driven to suicide after being mercilessly bullied by the residents of their home town of Cobh (Kinevane’s own home town) in County Cork.
Tino’s story is a contrasting mixture of witty, conversational anecdotes, black humour, vignettes inspired by his namesake Rudolph Valentino, and (with the help of some neat and stylish prop-puppetry) re-enactments of important moments in his life. There’s some very striking use of lighting and smoke on the otherwise nonexistent set, and some interesting use of pre-recorded dialogue and sound.
For this reviewer, it was impossible not to compare Silent to Here Lies Henry, which premiered at Theatre Works in January. Both works are intense monologues delivered by men in wifebeaters, featuring narratives with chop-and-change timelines and themes of alienation and homosexuality. Both productions mix conversational, self-deprecating comedy with tragic subjects, and both make good use of lighting and pre-recorded sound. The performers in each show break out the dancing shoes; and both productions even have remarkably similar endings.
Unfortunately, whereas Here Lies Henry managed to build its impressionistic strokes of apparent randomness into an interesting whole, Silent spills its narrative beans early on. Thereafter it mostly drifts about in a somewhat overblown manner, relying on Kinevane’s personal magnetism to maintain the audience’s interest.
As Tino, Kinevane dramatically re-enacts Pearse’s many suicide attempts and his painful interactions with their abusive mother, playing multiple characters in small, high-camp vignettes in a style apparently inspired by Valentino: a style that undercuts his character’s believability as a small-town, working-class, heterosexual Irishman.
Silent does a better job of talking about homelessness than it does addressing small-town homophobia and bullying; the work’s self-deprecating humour comes into its own when talking about disadvantage and the surprisingly short slide down the back of pedestrian mental illness into homelessness.
Though technically accomplished, dramatic, and mostly engaging, Silent fails to present a cohesive character or maintain narrative energy – sacrifices made, no doubt, in the service of an artistic vision. Kinevane is an impressive and multi-talented performer, but overall, the work fails to coalesce into a satisfying whole.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Fishamble and Arts Projects Australia present
Silent
Written and performed by Pat Kinevane
Directed by Jim Culleton
Music composed by Denis Clohessy
The Lawler, Southbank Theatre, Melbourne
7 – 10 February
De Parade, Perth
12 – 23 February
