The Sanctuary Lamp written and directed by Tom Murphy – Arcola Theatre ****

Murphy delivers a fraught drama about three people on the edge of society in a play that plunges the depths of humanity in its ‘unhoused, free condition’ and yet retains a warm sense of humour. Harry is an outcast and shadow of his former powerful self; an itinerant ex-circus strongman, he is hired by the Monsignor of a Catholic church to act as caretaker. He only lasts one shift but it is an eventful night in which he is visited by a ghostlike waif, Maudie, and his nemesis, the Irish blackguard Francisco. These three, battered and bruised by life’s onslaught, entertain and protect each other in ways that are by turns nurturing and beastly, but in every way all too human.

The dingy church setting is realistically rendered with pews, a pulpit, a confessional and the sanctuary lamp but the echoing effect that persists throughout the play is an unnecessary distraction. The very dominance of the church-as-set is ironic because of the very fact that religious faith doesn’t feature as a strong redemptive force (the church echoes because it is an empty signifier); Harry speaks to the sanctuary lamp, remembering his young daughter and lamenting her loss, but he can derive no comfort from it or from the notion of God. Only Maudie maintains her belief in Jesus and his powers of forgiveness because of the extremity in which she finds herself and the guilt she suffers over the death of her child. Francisco is a bombastic drunk but also a plain-speaker who goes someway towards convincing Maudie that the ghostly visitations she believes she has experienced are mere dreams.

Robert O’Mahoney gives an excellent and warm performance as Harry. By way of his compulsion to talk and his antic verbal expression, where he tirelessly appends almost every utterance with a ‘you know’ or an ‘actually’, he counters loneliness by filling emptiness with words - after all “silence is loneliness” in this play. His eccentricity is humorous but also pitiful as his verbal tics reveal that something about his character is amiss. He mentions to the Monsignor that he has a compulsion to do something bad, this ‘something’ remains unnamed but it lends a sinister air to the proceedings, especially when the young and vulnerable Maudie shows up.

Kate Brennan’s Maudie is a strange creature who fetishises the telling of her own story by hinting at the sexual violence in her past and then excitedly asking ‘shall I tell you…?’ when Harry or Francisco provides an audience. Unlike Harry, Francisco is willing to listen to Maudie’s story which serves to demystify it just as his atheistic rant deflates the Mystery of religion – “God made the world, sure. But what has he done since?” Declan Conlon gives an energetic performance as Francisco and manages to capture his Irish charm as well as his disturbing sexual interest in Maudie. This play shows how the religious morality cannot serve as a template for life with all its complexity and nuance. Maudie is young and her religious conviction strong, on the other hand Francisco and Harry display the cynicism that comes with experience. It is obvious that Maudie will lose her spirituality and become a pragmatist – religion has no place where humanity exists in all its imperfection. Murphy’s play is unintentionally all too timely - Harry’s question “is the Pope infallible?” is distressingly resonant at the present time as sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic church is once again making the headlines.

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Twelfth Night - directed by Gregory Doran ****

The RSC's current production of Twelfth Night is riotously funny but, thankfully, does not ignore the darker elements of the play. Previous versions have done so (notably, the 1997 RSC production), playing the entire thing for laughs to the detriment of this complex play, possibly Shakespeare's finest comedy. But Gregory Doran's Twelfth Night is not short on humour and it is always a joy to experience a production of Shakespeare which doesn't just exist as an historical curiosity but is a relevant and vigorous play in its own right. This Twelfth Night didn't just seem like something which should be enjoyed and appreciated because it is Shakespeare - it wasn't in the least tired or bombastic but full of life and interest.

Set against an ostensibly Ottoman backdrop, the action in Illyria is lent an exotic and hedonistic quality by the incense bearers, hookah pipes, and colourful lanterns which process across the stage at various points. And then the characters arrive in English Regency costume with a few pairs of harem pants thrown in (looking like a nod to Renaissance pantaloons) – a bit of a visual non sequitur along with the plastic sea wave protruding from backstage right, confusingly behind a high city wall. Although the set and setting do not make complete sense, the atmosphere that they help to create is spot-on; this is a far away and isolated wonderland which operates under different rules from those at home.

Malvolio's discovery of the prank letter is the crowning glory of a very funny play with an excellent cast. James Fleet stands out as the preening Andrew Aguecheek, and Richard McCabe is effortlessly hilarious as the gross Sir Toby. One cannot forgo a mention of Richard Wilson as Malvolio, possibly the biggest lure of this production; he gives a good but predictable performance with more than a hint of Victor Meldrew in it, but his advanced years definitely add another element to the abasement he is made to suffer at the hands of Sir Toby and Maria. Miltos Yerolemou gives a nuanced performance as Feste; he is a fool with a tragic bent, crying real tears when Olivia uncovers the cruel jest in which he played a part. Accompanying the musicians on stage at the end of the interval, Yerolemou entertains the audience, not in the character of Feste, but as a courtly fool and this is just one example of the exquisite attention to detail that makes this production such a joy. Doran has really thought about the conventions of Elizabethan theatre and brought them back to life here – this is art as pure and unadulterated entertainment.

Perhaps the revelatory last scene, where Cesario/Viola's gender-bending comes to light, isn't as much the carnivalesqe inversion it may have once been; the shock with which Jo Stone-Fewings' Duke Orsino contemplates having had the hots for a girl dressed as a boy, and mistaking Sebastian for his sister, doesn't quite resonate with a modern theatre audience. We can live with Orsino's dalliance in bisexuality, but Antonio's exclusion is more troubling. The final scene is sill humorous and can be taken in the rip-roaringly funny tone intended, but Antonio's pain at being denied by Sebastian lingers on as does Malvolio’s cruel humiliation. A final procession of dispossessed and broken individuals follows that last scene, where comedic custom would have everyone neatly paired off, to stress that the loose ends are far from being tied up in a world where men can harm others for their own sport.

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