Penelope by Enda Walsh

We are at the bottom of a drained swimming pool in the baking summer heat. Two men stand bathed in orange light. One, the self named “mighty” Quinn (Kari Shiels), in tiny red speedos and yellow loafers, stares at a raw sausage on a broken barbeque. The other, Burns (Tadhg Murphy), stares at a bloodstain on the wall. This is the first spellbinding frame of Penelope, the third collaboration in four years between writer Enda Walsh and Irish theatre company Druid. The two men are soon joined by two more; Fitz (Niall Buggy) enters carrying Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ and Dunne (Denis Conway), wearing a faux tiger skin dressing gown, sips a cocktail. The men are waiting, as they have done every day for years, for a CCTV camera to flash, for the free standing microphone to be turned on, and for Penelope (Olga Wehrly) to start watching: the mute, captivating Penelope, left home alone by Odysseus. One of them must try to win her love, and especially today, because Odysseus is coming home - ready to destroy his wife’s four remaining suitors.Director Mikel Murfi extracts unfalteringly superb performances from his cast of five. Murphy is outstanding as the abused, sulky, staring Burns, but everyone shines, because Walsh’s play is also superb. It meshes the exquisite and absurd. At one moment Quinn is blow-torching the aforementioned sausage - or, as it is called, ‘the sausage of our youth’; Quinn later performs a hilarious, unbelievable quick change routine to “impress” Penelope, appearing as numerous iconic lovers. At another moment, we find ourselves stranded within Fitz’s act of existentialist cabaret on longing and the universe, which sounds like Beckett with extra heart; we are mesmerised. And if such speeches were insufficient in showing that Walsh is a master of the language, his similes and metaphors are always razor sharp.Ultimately, Penelope is hard to fathom, just like the other Walsh plays I have seen, Delirium, his adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and 2008’s Druid collaboration, The New Electric Ballroom. Characteristically, Penelope is memorable, difficult and beautiful, melancholy and hilarious. I think it would need to be read and re-read to be truly appreciated. However, if you’ve never seen a Druid production or an Enda Walsh play, go to witness the company’s brilliant acting and Walsh’s sparkling, elusive writing. If you’ve seen both company and writer before, go to this latest offering. You may be more intrigued than instructed, but you won’t be disappointed.