Cyprus Avenue: A Shocking exploration of trauma and Identity
Reviewed by Emmalynn Mallay in the theatre criticism class of Patrick Langston
Eric is convinced: His newborn granddaughter is Gerry Adams, the Irish Republican politician. Eric is haunted by the trauma of living through the Troubles, when Northern Ireland was rocked by bombings and conflict between the Catholic Irish Republicans and the Protestant British Loyalists that left thousands of civilians dead between the 1960’s and 1990’s.
Loyalist Eric (Stephan Rea) will not suffer Catholics, and certainly not Gerry Adams himself disguised as a newborn, in his house. Unaware of his psychosis, he hires a hit-man to take out his granddaughter, willing to do anything it takes to defeat the “fenians”. David Ireland’s 90-minute drama Cyprus Avenue explores what it means to be Northern Irish after a history of extremely partisan politics and having an identity which contradicts itself. Can one be both British and Irish? Is there a difference? Does it matter? Eric’s identity is shattered when he realizes he might, in fact, be Irish. …