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There’s a point in Tim Foley’s new play where you’re suddenly unsure which of the characters is the one cracking up. Mam is bursting into angry tirades and throwing pasta about the place, Dad is the only member of the family anyone in their neighbourhood has seen in the last year (could he actually be living alone?) and Johnny, their student son, can’t see their three dogs and keeps hallucinating that he can see the actual Cleopatra.
‘The Dogs of War’ is a riff on madness and what it does to love. It is a brilliantly surreal, if ultimately pretty convoluted debut from Foley. The play opens up the world of Mam and Dad who have moved to (very) rural Northern Ireland to retire and are struggling with Mam’s illness. Johnny’s return from university is a catalyst for some exceptionally strange happenings (the appearance of the Egyptian queen for one) and a demonstration that sacrificing our happiness to look after a loved one isn’t necessarily a good thing to do.
It’s a hefty subject matter, but this black comedy dresses the drama with hilarious weirdness. Foley’s dialogue is often great and the first half, with its barbed, quick-witted exchanges is very funny. But the play flounders towards the middle, getting wrapped up in its own oddity. Why Johnny can’t see the dogs isn’t explained, while the unexpectedly violent climax eclipses any real narrative resolve. Rather than getting an understanding of why Dad has decided to spend his life caring for someone we’re left wondering why on earth he bothered. Meanwhile, the crisis in Johnny’s own mind is diluted by his increasingly tiresome visions.
But the seeds of an excellent, brutal and very droll play are here, and an all-round great cast ensures they come through. Tom O’Brien’s pacy production uses both the stage and the audience seats inventively – although I pitied the audience member who had to sit next to Johnny as he wanked off at his laptop. Libby Todd’s design gives us a home where shelves, appliances and furniture are all askew, like the family’s lives.
This is a wobbly, confusing, funny take on love and mental disintegration, which falls short of being the play it could.