The Brightening Air: Unbearably tense and brilliantly acted
After seeing The Brightening Air at the Old Vic, I left the theatre with the overwhelming urge to seize control of my own destiny. It follows an extended family as they prepare to meet after a long time apart. The occasion: the birthday of the blind ex-clergyman Father Pierre. It is a play in which everybody yearns: for love, money, or a certain something that remains elusive…
Loosely based on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya – playwright Conor McPherson (The Girl from the North Country) says the play is “haunted by” Chekov’s masterpiece – The Brightening Air is brimming with questions, the most urgent being: what kind of life is worth living? Characters question each other’s life choices: ‘What is your dream?’ they ask earnestly. Nobody has any answers.
It’s a family drama that revolves around three siblings: Dermot, Stephen and Billie, the latter two still living in the decaying family farmhouse. Dermot has his own family but is hellbent on tearing it apart. Uncle Pierre, meanwhile, is accompanied by a woman who is his wife in all but the essential activities, if you know what I mean. Each one is deeply dissatisfied with their lot.
Like Chekov, McPherson is at his best when conjuring up fraught relationships, and in this play’s most thrilling moments, the audience is drawn into an intense emotional bubble, its characters expanding and contracting with the tension. At times it’s almost unbearable, a sign of McPherson’s talents.
Unlike Chekov, The Brightening Air is also imbued with mythic qualities and the odd dose of actual magic. McPherson says the play is drenched in folklore; I’d describe it as more spattered, the symbolism somehow feeling both too on the nose and rather nonsensical.
The godfearing masses are described as ‘ignorant minions of the dark,’ and the three sneering siblings are branded ‘Cheshire cu**ts’
A case in point: Dermot’s estranged wife Lydia is desperate to get her hands on some magic water that will make the recipient fall in love with her. She wants to use it on her unfaithful husband, who turns up to the family gathering with his new, young girlfriend Freya. Lydia cannot let her husband go, despite the audience willing her to release herself from Dermot’s spell and settle down with his brother, Joe, who is clearly in love with her. Whether Lydia is indeed under a spell or whether she is simply incapable of changing her mind is left to the audience.
In the second half, Father Pierre abruptly regains his sight – was he lying for sympathy all along? Or has he been blessed by God? “I can see you all,” he says profoundly. Yet he hasn’t come to any great revelation. The effect of these unexplained magical qualities muddy the waters of what would have been more successful as a realist play.
It is nevertheless a brilliantly acted, incredibly smooth production from a gifted playwright. Rosie Sheeny is hilarious as the train station-obsessed, plain-talking younger sibling Billie. Chris O’Dowd is devilishly funny as the alcoholic, unfaithful Dermot, while Hannah Morrish gives a forlorn and credible performance as his long-suffering wife, Lydia. At times it’s very funny, too. The godfearing masses are described as “ignorant minions of the dark,” and the three sneering siblings are branded “Cheshire cu**ts” (I’ll be nabbing that one for sure).
McPherson describes the theatre as “a pagan church where we watch an eternal story play out upon the altar”. But there’s no obvious moral lesson to be learned from The Brightening Air. Still, it left me feeling strangely energised. To hell with fatalism and unrequited love. Let’s throw out all the myths. And I suppose, judged upon this, McPherson’s play is really quite successful.
• Book tickets here for The Brightening Air at the Old Vic