Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 23rd February 2016
Underneath by Pat Kinevane is a very, very black surreal comedy. It is another of the three Irish plays on offer in Showroom One at GC, the German Club, presented by Arts Projects Australia with support from Culture Ireland. Kinevane appears, rising slowly from the grave, black faced, leathered in the early stages of decay.
We discover that we are in the presence of the corpse of a woman who was hit by lightning and badly burned, seeming more like a male after recovering, and left badly disfigured. Her story begins at school, with the cruelty, ridicule and bullying, and carries through to her death two weeks earlier, in her flat near Croke Park in Dublin. In the flat above were two Eastern European prostitutes who had befriended her.
She is buried in a run down Cemetery in Cobh, County Cork, foxes living in the broken grave next door. Perhaps it is the Old Church (or Clonmel) Cemetery, of ancient lineage, that is referenced. The other old cemetery in Cobh is Ballymore (or Templerobin). It probably doesn't matter which it is based on, though. The story holds inn all of its emotional depth.
The narrative links Cobh and ancient Egypt, her mother having been fascinated by Cleopatra. Gold is the other colour of this production, starkly juxtaposed against the black. A hanging golden curtain, a crown, and knitting are all used to great effect.
The woman interrupts herself, to parody one of those television programmes where a couple are searching the world for their ideal home. Tension is relieved in these moments of ludicrous hilarity but soon builds again as we hear of the discrimination, abuse and mistreatment she has endured throughout her life.
Pat Kinevane is asking us to consider what beauty really is, making us consider whether are we always judging books by their covers, questioning whether the outside reflects the inside, and vice versa, and to evaluate our own attitudes. What is considered to be beauty, by you, might be nothing like another's idea of beautiful. It extrapolates beyond body images and disfigurement and embraces, by implication, the entire span of how we perceive and treat those whom we deem to be "different", not merely in appearance but in any way at all. Language, skin colour, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic level, and more, can be embraced in this performance. Her disfigurement is symbolic of a vast range of differences.
Kinevane's performance is riveting, his sudden diversions into humour, disturbing, his physicality, astounding. It all adds up to a stunning piece of theatre that will be spoken of in glowing terms long after the Fringe has ended. Make sure that you see this production.
Here is a taste.
