Paisley Arts Centre, on tour 2005

Michael Condron and Richard Orr as Ciarán and Seán in Borderland.

THE BORDERLAND occupied by Andrew Doyle’s play is geographical, temporal and psychological. It is the place that brothers Ciarán and Seán live (the borderland between north and south), the time they are living through (the borderland between war and peace in Northern Ireland) and their transitional state of mind (the borderland between past and present).

This is hardly the first play about the Troubles but, inspired by the events of this year, it is perhaps the first legitimately to consider the possibility of a future. Directed by Lorenzo Mele for 7:84 theatre company, it is a thoughtful and engaging two-hander, superbly acted by Michael Condron and Richard Orr, that scales no great emotional heights but shows Doyle to be a highly promising arrival on the writing scene.

His setting is a house in Derry and, in the second half, a cottage near Donegal. From the edge of Northern Ireland to the edge of the Republic, the play occupies a landscape ripe with the possibility of change. History and politics have made the two brothers British citizens, but circumstances might easily have made them as Irish as they feel.

The play’s time is now, at the crucial turning point between the IRA murder of Robert McCartney in January 2005 and the organisation’s decommissioning of its weapons taking place even as I write. Only history will show the true significance of this volte face, but right now it feels like we’re in the borderland between the old and new.

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… the confident, measured and understated performances by Condron and Orr do tremendous justice to the playwright’s ideas.

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Consequently, the mental landscape for Doyle’s two Catholic characters is also switching – from the certainties of sectarianism to the open book of the future. For the younger Ciarán, pacifist, neurotic and bookish, this is a shift to be welcomed. For his older brother Seán, romantic, forceful and passionate, it’s a threat to his very sense of identity. If he can’t play at being a volunteer – and play is pretty much all he has ever done – then what will he play at next?

Rather than articulate the specifics of the current political situation, Doyle symbolises the passing of the old order by introducing a clock-carrying serial killer (a wordless Gareth Morrison) who counts time on his victims. The metaphor is a tad heavy-handed, as Seán sees the minutes tick away on his old existence, even if it adds a thriller-ish tension to the closing scenes.

The question of what actually happens next remains. If Doyle has his way, it will involve people setting down tribal loyalties and thinking for themselves. Perhaps that’s no great political insight, but the confident, measured and understated performances by Condron and Orr do tremendous justice to the playwright’s ideas.

Borderland can be seen at Inverness Royal Academy on 1 October 2005.

© Mark Fisher, 2005