SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2025
Volunteers
'Volunteers', performed at Derry-Londonderry's Playhouse Theatre
Arts Over Borders' presentation of Brian Friel's Volunteers, directed by Paula McFetridge, is a reminder of why we go to the theatre to begin with - a masterfully orchestrated mixture of performance art, enduring truths and social satire. This fiftieth anniversary reading, the first professional production of Friel's play to take place in either Ireland or the UK in the twenty-first century, is a real eye-opener, where the ensemble of eight are uniformly exceptional in entertainingly and intelligently conveying the realities of a grim, gentrified scenario.
The setting is an archaeological site where skeletal Viking remains threaten to disrupt the development of a luxury hotel. The titular volunteers - Keeney (Patrick O'Kane), Smiler (Andy Doherty), Butt (Michael Johnston), Pyne (Patrick McBrearty) and Knox (Frankie McCafferty) - are prisoners on daily parole who are tasked with excavating said site under the supervision of archaeology student Desmond (Christopher Grant) and the bureaucratic George (Gerard Jordan). The guard, Mr Wilson (Charlie Bonner), is perhaps most notable by his absence, with his daughter's music exam taking his concern and attention away from the central ongoings.
Accompanied by music from Martin Coyle and Robert Peoples, Friel's rich, thorough and historically contextual language receives a reading laden with invention and conviction. A group of prisoners who may well come across as impersonal and drone-like to the hierarchy are lively and personal to us – up close, they're an example of bonding, while from a distance, they're part of a process. That every prisoner remains dressed in the same green colour speaks to a form of unified depersonalisation – what can mean belonging to them can mean irrelevance for others. It is comforting and chilling.
The volunteers appear to realise that the manual labour they undertake provides them with plenty of opportunities to philosophise and reflect, along with the creation of personae and a purpose that perhaps wouldn't exist were they not entrusted to dig. It's the openness of expression within trapped circumstance – all that pent-up energy with nowhere else to go. And the result is not only compelling, but also comedic, with several limericks recited, numerous stories told, and multiple instances of mimicry occurring during the play. Creativity can indeed emerge from the craziness of what are relatively cramped confines, and so too can fascination, as it does when the prisoners' attention at last turns to the Viking skeleton. They nickname him "Leif" – could that speak to their fear of being blown away, of being forgotten about not just by the occupants of the new building which will arise but by one another?
It really does take time for the reality of a changing world to sink in, and the manner in which this production of Volunteers is performed and directed smartly gets that message across. Volunteers is vital in showing a world where individual performativity and group camaraderie, even if it is temporary, can feel like the soul's only defence against evolution but can also result in the danger of detachment which can lead to being unprepared or apathetic when confronted with natural fear and fright. It is a refreshing display of artistic humanity in the face of hard facts, attaining its goals with a powerful poignancy which I am convinced will linger with its audience for a very long time.
Simon Fallaha
Volunteers was performed at Derry-Londonderry's Playhouse Theatre from Friday August 29 to Sunday August 31, as part of the Arts Over Borders FrielDays Festival. For more information on the festival, click here.