‘Dublin Oldschool’ bursts onto the tiny stage of Pleasance Beside with a positively shocking energy that rarely relents during its one hour’s length. We are catapulted onto the streets of contemporary Dublin via a discursive dub-influenced diatribe that elevates obscenity into artfully encrusted rhymes and rhythms that belt along at a pace well beyond the speed limit.
There’s a raw energy at work that propels this piece into our consciousnesses with the directness of a kick in the guts or a bullet to the head. Is this always a good thing? Possibly something to discuss at greater length than is advisable here, but it's perhaps worth observing that “Dublin Oldschool’ somewhat belies its title.
It feels too big for Pleasance Beside, and a little early in the day for this tale of drugs, drug users and yet more drugs. The cast of two bring both the central and other characters to vibrant, spitting life with conviction, energy and integrity. Even they, however, stand in danger of being overwhelmed by what a set-designer colleague is wont to refer to as ‘the blethers’, for this script is dense indeed with more than mere expletives. Rich in linguistic trickeries and local references, it becomes a leaning tower of baroque intricacy that threatens to collapse beneath its own ingenuity.
Jason dreams of being a DJ, but a chance encounter with his estranged brother Daniel, leads the pair of them through a series a random encounters of the chemically-induced variety. This bro-man picaresque includes a failed fumbling attempt at re-connection with a former girlfriend, a meditation on Irish history and a police raid (or is it?) on a ‘cross between a student flat and a crack den’.
All good clean fun, then, till someone loses their stash and the ketamine turns out to be something almost as alarming.
But what, this reviewer found himself piously asking, does it all mean? As slice of contemporary life in almost any city, ‘Dublin Oldschool’ is as pin-sharp as they come and far more literate than most other attempts to nail the zeitgeist, yet ultimately its efforts appear as ephemeral as the effects of the drugs its characters search so assiduously for.
Pleasance Beside, 3-28 August (not 8, 9, 10 or 15), 1pm