Occasional international festival MimeLondon brings a second UK première to the Barbican’s Pit this week, Galway-based Brú Theatre’s Not a Word.
It is an hour-long tribute to the hoards of Irishmen who, over generations and out of desperation, came to the UK as labourers on canal, rail and road construction sites, enduring lives of hard toil and isolation.
Costume and set designers Saileóg O’Halloran and Andrew Clanc have intentionally made this a monochrome watch. Raymond Keane’s unnamed character is splattered with the materials of his labour, his bedsit a collection of beiges and greys, the dullness broken only by a tiny red votive light sending a flicker over a Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pinned to the wall between the kitchen sink and a cabinet, it is as marooned and out of place as the man.
The man’s mask (designer Orla Clogher) is a glob of clay bumps presenting a characterless face, thereby creating a representation of any and every navvy. Its mass requires Keane to move unnaturally at times as a story of loneliness and hardship emerges through this scriptless performance.
The man’s empty life and homesickness are given the necessary further dimension by a striking score of live electronic and traditional Irish music from Ultan O’Brien, perched on the side of the stage, his soundscape reflecting and provoking the emotions and thoughts executed through movement by Keane.
At 60 minutes, the show is a little long and a little too meditative given its lack of plot, but connections are brought about by intermittent points of pathos: reading the paper in grubby underpants, the jolting darkness when the electricity meter runs out of money, dancing alone.
Finally, O’Brien’s orchestration rings with the sound of a ship’s horn, and it is clear that the unlikely hero is returning home, his earlier heavy-footedness replaced with a nimble urgency as he packs his meagre belongings.
As the score reaches an apocalyptic level of noise, Keane pulls the clay from his face a handful at a time. As a gesture, it has more meaning than impact, a statement of regaining one’s identity, perhaps rejecting anonymity and returning to a place of being seen.
Keane unties and carefully places the clay-scraped mask by the suitcase on the floor and moves away, leaving the dingy room to form a tableau, a pre-planned set piece in a museum of social history.
The ending is an open question. As Keane looks about himself, is he the man now disassociated from his past, an estranged observer, the next inhabitant of this dreary life, and what are we to draw from this ruminative ode to self-exile?