The Glens Arts Centre
Town Hall Studio, November 12
***
Consultants. Those in the world of finance might say that they offer innovative solutions and specialist guidance, assisting in implementing new strategies to help companies overcome obstacles.
The more cynical might describe them as expert bullshit artists, who take hundreds of thousands in return for advice in an area that they know very little about. Braggadocious showmen who talk the talk, exquisitely embodied by Jed Murray's 'Jonathan' in David Quinn's clever play, A Modest Proposal.
Murray's protagonist is seedy to the point of making your skin crawl; his jeans, sneakers and turtleneck combination likely borrowed from Steve Jobs' infamous iPhone launch. The posh South Dublin accent is the icing on the cake, creating a character who is more of a second-rate performer than a legitimate businessman.
A Modest Proposal is based on Jonathan Swift's satirical essay of the same name. Its focus is 'preventing the children of poor people from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public'. How exactly will this be achieved? By feeding them to the wealthy, of course.
The first half of the play is actually quite affecting. We are hit with some (presumably accurate ) facts, revealing Ireland as the fourth richest country in the world, according to GDP per capita, yet one-in-eight children here are living in poverty. And although the people of Ireland have given tens of millions in charitable donations over the past number of years, the situation continues to get worse.
Quinn sets himself a tremendously difficult task. To go from such a delicate, topical issue to the bonkers resolution which Jonathan puts forward is an enormous risk. You are asking the audience to take a huge leap of faith, which we ultimately do, due to the sharp writing and the ridiculous smarm of Murray's highly entertaining protagonist.
Yet, once the resolution is revealed around the halfway mark, there really is nowhere left to go. After that, the comedy starts to wane, and the PowerPoint setup becomes slightly monotonous. Conversely, this may have been purposefully done. After all, we are sitting through a farcical, self-indulgent, rambling presentation from a 'blue sky ideas' man, clearly in love with the sound of his own voice.
A play likely to split audiences, but a thought-provoking piece nonetheless, and a pleasant way to see out a yet another fantastic year of theatre in Galway.
