Review of Dolores – trust and desire in a picture of a difficult relationship | Section

SBeing together because of a child adds weight to Eva O’Connor’s new drama Fishamble. Theater Company. In their mid-20s, Mo (Catriona Faint) and Réaltín (Lara McDonnell) at first seem like bickering parents; The “chosen family”, going to the medical session, is an audience that acts as a supporter. When the pair’s story begins at their first meeting as university students in Edinburgh, a picture of a complicated relationship emerges.

Playwright and actor O’Connor has previously written about coercionand here he clearly describes the confusing mixture of love, trust, lust and desire that can be poured into young female friends: “the magnetic attraction of the wild,” Réaltín calls it. In the beginning it was the difference between the Glaswegian, Mo, and the inexperienced, middle class, Réaltín, who strengthened their alliance – caught in a game of dedication and passion by Faint and McDonnell.

As the director Jim Culleton makes clear, in small moments and gestures, Réaltín can be indifferent to the difference of their opinions; the difference between loving and being “in love”. It doesn’t matter in their years of drinking and acting out, but after college, when the troubled Réaltín falls in love with a wealthy Finnish man, the fallout is dire.

Alternating between monologues on competing games, dances and humorous dialogues, the relaxed exposure of the original events begins to settle around the events of a one-night stand, with an emphasis that is confirmed by the sound design of Denis Clohessy. At a party where sex, alcohol and jealousy explode together, the climax of the violence is more visible because it is not directly explained.

Set designer Alyson Cummins’ simple raised platform rests on discarded bottles, books and trash, as if to allow us to see the detritus that has been swept under the carpet. O’Connor is very good at making sure we don’t look away.