Anna Burnside reviews a production that ‘evokes the intensity of youthful friendships’.
Mo and Realtin meet as students, stuck in a lift. Waiting to be rescued, they drink Buckfast and dance to the Cranberries. Their friendship begins messy and gets darker and untidier as the years go on.
We first meet them in a therapist’s office, raking over the events that led them to be living as a “chosen family” in a one-bedroom flat with Realtin’s daughter. They make an unlikely pair: Mo a spiky Glaswegian class warrior, Realtin a glossy Dublin princess.
Through their escalating narrative, Irish playwright Eva O’Connor evokes the intensity of youthful friendships where booze and proximity can easily blur lines. That ends when Realtin meets a devastatingly attractive Finnish student and the two friends don’t meet again until her engagement party.
Mo brings her wee brother - a hot, charming, male version of his sister - along for moral support on a night that ends up changing everything.
Faint does a great job as the political gobshite who is madly in love with her gorgeous, straight best friend. O’Connor’s script captures the Scottish trait of using self-deprecating jokes to hide hurt and insecurity and Faint brings it to painful life.
Realtin’s character is less developed, but McDonnell’s charm does much of the heavy lifting. Director Jim Culleton unrolls the story with tiny gestures and meaningful glances and a simple raised set, with the debris of student life stuffed randomly underneath, adds a physical layer to the story of what happens next.
There’s also dancing, wince-inducing breast-feeding chat and an unexpected reference to La Passionara, the Dolores of the show’s title. Great stuff.
For Dolores is part of the Traverse Theatre’s Travfest 26 and performs until 30 August 2026. For further details, go to the theatre’s website.
RSS