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Review : Sive
By Siobhán Breatnach
Sive
 An Irish Network
of Dramatic Arts presentation of a play by John B Keane
Directed by Tom Begley.
Tom Begley’s interpretation of John B Keane’s Sive looks
unpretentiously at the complexities of match-making, marriage and money
alongside the conflicts of greed, lust and love.
A tragic folk story set in 1950s rural Ireland the play is an archetypal
Irish tale set in a farmhouse kitchen.
Young and beautiful Sive (Lucy De Brún) is an orphan who lives
with her uncle Mike (John Casey), his crafty wife Mena (Susan Cummins)
and her Nanna (Ingrid Evans) in the remote Kerry boglands.
But when salacious old farmer Sean Dotá (Tony Barber) expresses
an interest in the girl and offers to pay for her hand in marriage she
becomes nothing more than a money pawn in the plans of match-maker Tomasheen
Sean Rua (John Morrissey).
But Sive’s heart belongs to the handsome Liam Scuab (Dylan McDonough)
and even her caring, if overly subdued, uncle Mike is powerless to stop
Tomasheen hatching a plan with money-obsessed Mena to be rid of his niece
and mother.
In Mena, Keane has created a character who is totally void of compassion,
driven by her own wants and needs and which inevitably is the result of
living a life full of regret.
But under the direction of Begley, Cummins avoids becoming the farcical
shrieking hag and instead sparks well with stage husband Casey —
who embodies the struggles of a man trying to keep his family at peace
with ease and grace.
The intimate surroundings of the White Bear Theatre allow the play to
infiltrate the senses and it’s hard not to connect with the characters
and their individual struggles.
Lucy de Brún as Sive captures the utter hopelessness of a girl
left with no choices and no future — save in the arms of a doddering
leach.
And as her girlish charms diminish into a steady stream of sobbing Mena’s
manipulation grows — she shows little remorse for telling the young
girl lies about her dead parents so that she will feel obliged to marry
Sean Dotá.
Parallel to the story of Sive’s struggles is the hateful relationship
between Mena and Nanna — and as you would expect both are wrapped
up in a loathsome and venomous daughter/mother-in-law cliché.
But despite Nanna’s scorn and disgust for what is happening (a sentiment
that is echoed by the audience), Keane’s script leaves her feeble,
frail and unable to intervene.
Breaking from Sive’s heartache and the scheming Mena are musical
travellers Pats Bocock and Cathleen Bocock (Seán Brosnan and Katherine
Pageon) who add a sense of foreboding and doom to the story when they
arrive at various intervals during the play singing Irish songs and begging
for money.
They hint at bygone traditions and Irish culture of yesteryear in preparation
for a forlorn end to Sive’s tale.
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