The Map of Argentina

Mark Huberman ('Sam') and Maeve Fitzgerald ('Deb') in Map of Argentina by Marina Carr. Image incredited.

***

Had the proposed Boy gone ahead, we would have had three world premieres by Marina Carr in the past twelve months. Ignoring whether or not that’s fair given the dearth of opportunities for new Irish writers, you wouldn't wish a pulled production on anyone. Instead, we're left with two. Audrey or Sorrow which premiered at The Abbey in March, and The Map of Argentina which premiered at An Taibhdhearc as part of Galway International Arts Festival. If you think The Map of Argentina is a new work, you would be mistaken. It's been in print since 2015, and is included in Marina Carr: Plays Three. A play some might think wasn't produced for very good reasons, it being a curio in the Carr canon to say the least. .

Were Carr to write a novel and adapt it into a mini series for television, the end result might well be The Map of Argentina. Episodic scenes, with scored intros by Carl Kennedy, capturing key moments in the life of Deb. A woman who’s child bearing years are over and whose children are unbearable. Mother of five, married to the cuckolded Sam, Deb has the hots for her tender bit of rough, Darby. Deb trying to make her life and soul fit. Reflected in Ciarán Bagnall's Mondrian inspired set. A collaboration of hard edged rectangles and a constantly repositioned couch containing the mess desperately wanting to spill over. For if loving Darby is wrong, Deb doesn't want to be right. Except, she does. Wants to be right with herself, with her brood of five, with her husband, his mother, her ailing father, and the surprisingly wise Darby. Wanting everything and its opposite.

Map of Argentina by Marina Carr. Image incredited. 

Under Andrew Flynn's compartmentalised direction, The Map of Argentina doesn't quite come together, with scenes serving as pendulum sweeps between emotional extremities. Woman loving her husband, woman wanting her lover. Woman hating her husband, woman wanting to leave her lover. Woman wanting her children yet hating being reduced to just a mother. Each a distinct picture in a slide show gallery that sees Deb looking fragmented, as if wanting her cake and to eat it too. Yet some inspired casting goes a long way to bringing conflicting passions into a cohesive force. Mark Huberman’s Sam, initially a walking wound, hugely impressive as a father and husband seeing his world fall apart and not knowing what to do. Only knowing that when it comes to his children, the mother will always be favoured in the courts. Deb, a brilliant Maeve Fitzgerald, making vivid a woman torn too many ways at once. Feeling too much and too little at once. Adventurous and afraid all at once. Fitzgerald’s Deb a living field of pained energy. Not someone to be dismissed as having a midlife crisis, but a soul looking for completion. Fionn O’Liongsigh’s short, dark and handsome Darby, with just the right touch of brooding menace, suggesting a masculinity to be desired in many senses of the word. Allannah O'Grady, Art Brophy, Elise Broderick, Fionnuala Barrett and Eli Sloan each terrific as children who turn every tragedy into their own. Brid Ní Neachtain as Sam's mother, and Daniel Reardon as Deb's father rounding out the family unit. Of course, let’s not forget Rae Visser as the cliched French waiter, they might get the hump if we do.

When it comes to the otherworldly, a staple ingredient in Carr’s work, we find it restricted to the tale of the Argentinian. Michael Cruz’s curious surgeon, like a calcified heart, cringemaking for all the wrong reasons. Not helped by Carr’s writing showing a surprisingly simplistic, almost juvenile directness which allows little room for dreams of hindsight in the midst of the maelstrom. Leaving The Map of Argentina feeling somewhat immature. But if it’s not Carr’s best work, at times it feels like her most personal. A public glimpse of the private writer. Carr wearing her heart on her sleeve. For there’s something deeply moving and satisfying about The Map of Argentina, despite its failed efforts to contain its mess. Something that feels hard won.

The Map of Argentina by Marina Carr, presented by Decadent Theatre Company and Galway Arts Centre, runs at An Taibhdhearc as part of Galway International Arts Festival until July 27.

For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024 or An Taibhdhearc