Theatre review: The Brightening Air

Playwright and director Conor McPherson recently received a massive tax bill - at least that's the most obvious explanation for the frantic flurry of activity he's got planned for this year, when he'll be writing new shows, directing some of his old ones and, to start with, doing both: His new play The Brightening Air gets its debut production at the Old Vic, with the playwright himself directing and, to be honest, not doing much to dissuade me from my general rule of thumb that this is A Bad Idea. With nods to Chekhov that are acknowledged when one character jokingly refers to another by a Russian patronymic, the play sees a family reunite a few times at a remote family home - in this case a dilapidated farmhouse in Ireland. Middle child Stephen (Brian Gleeson) lives there with his Nonspecifically Neurodivergent little sister Billie (Rosie Sheehy,) who finds as much comfort in the familiar place as she does in discussing her wide range of fixations.

The actual farm now only consists of a couple of cows and chickens, and by mainly concerning himself with looking after his sister Stephen has been unable to keep the place afloat; it is the only home they know though, and the pair are worried their older brother will find a way of selling the place out from under them.

Dermot (Chris O'Dowd) is coming over as part of a larger family gathering, and brings his employee Freya (Aisling Kearns) with him, ostensibly to help with the meal. But she's clearly his new girlfriend as he's left his wife and children - something he hasn't actually got round to telling them, so Lydia (Hannah Morrish) has also turned up. Also arriving later are their uncle Pierre (Seán McGinley,) a blind retired priest who's been quietly shunted aside by the church for not fucking enough choirboys the unorthodox turn his beliefs took in recent years, and his housekeeper Elizabeth (Derbhle Crotty,) while Brendan (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty,) who helps out around the farm because he's in love with Billie, sometimes pops in as well.

I guess like Uncle Vanya, the play that most obviously inspires it, this is largely a story about stagnation: Stephen and Billie have used their situation as an excuse to stay in a house that's falling down around them all their lives, Elizabeth has continued to look after Pierre even since the church stopped paying her because there's no one else to do it, and Brendan is fated from the start to take over his mother's tiny, empty pub that sounds suspiciously like the one in The Weir. Dermot talks a big game about change and is willing to drag everyone else through his midlife crisis, but also seems ultimately trapped.

The trouble is if the theme is inertia it needs a lot else to keep it interesting and I could never quite get my head round what The Brightening Air was actually trying to be: Like many McPherson plays it toys with the supernatural without actually committing to it - instead of a ghost story this time we have the characters' apparently genuine belief in a magic spring on the farm whose water acts like the love potion from A Midsummer Night's Dream but with added Catholicism, and a lot of the family misfortunes get blamed on witches and changelings.

But despite the efforts of Rae Smith's design, Mark Henderson's lighting and Gregory Clarke's sound to make the evening atmospheric, the show doesn't feel haunted either literally or metaphorically. And not everything holds together - there's apparently a time gap of at least some days between the second and third act when everyone went home, but we still haven't had Pierre's big announcement that they'd gathered for in the first place. And the play's setting in the early 1980s isn't apparent except when we're explicitly told so. There are a few comic moments that lighten the mood, but after a very bad night's sleep and a hot day at work, The Brightening Air certainly didn't make me feel any less likely to nod off in my seat.

The Brightening Air by Conor McPherson is booking until the 14th of June at the Old Vic.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.