Faber Faber Audrey or Sorrow.

by Marina Carr

It was a terrible crossing. The worst yet. There weren't enough boats. I had to stab my way up the gangplank. It was pitch black and the ferryman hadn't an eye in his head. In a house, a young mother watches over her sleeping baby. But in this dark and dangerously funny play, nothing is as it seems.Audrey or Sorrow is a shape-shifting, time-bending deep dive into a world of unimaginable loss. It exemplifies Marina Carr's storytelling that pushes the boundaries of love, power and desire.Draw coal. Coal is a beautiful thing. Someday we'll all be coal. A Landmark Productions and Abbey Theatre co-production, it opened at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in February 2024.

Genres: Plays

112 pages, Paperback

Published March 7, 2024

About the author

Marina Carr was brought up in County Offaly. A graduate of University College Dublin, she has written extensively for the theatre. She has taught at Villanova, Princeton, and currently teaches in the School of English, Dublin City University. Awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Macaulay Fellowship, the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Wyndham Campbell Prize. She lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.

Reviews

[Joeanne McFerran · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having seen this staged in the theatre I felt compelled to purchase the play and read it for myself.
Hard hitting and compelling play with a twisted narrative. I enjoyed the reading, though doing so not having seen the play any be a struggle for some.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finish date:  01.05.2024
Genre Play: Absurdist
Title: Audrey or Sorrow
Author: Marina Carr
Rating: A
Reading time: 2 hours


GoodNews:
Absurdist play by Irish playwright Marina Carr...Audrey or Sorrow was produced at the Dublin Abbey Theatre 23 Febr - 30 March 2024. I don't read many absurdist plays but in this one...solid worlds morph into treacherous ones behaving with the unpredictability of dreams. I was ready to read an "ordinary" play but scenes 7, 8,10  and 11 should have warned me this was going to be a  rollercoaster of a play.

GoodNews:
It took me time to grasp that these characters are in two different worlds. Who is living ...who is dead That is what I had to decide. Do I believe Audrey - arousing, inspiring fear or dread with each word? Scene 7: "...don't be fooled when they act like they're alive. They are wind and like the wind...they rise, they blow and then they die. We know better don't we?"

GoodNews:
Do I believe the young couple, David and Maria, mourning the loss of their infants. Scene 10: Maria asks her parents if they ever "...felt anything?" (ghosts). Her father says: "Ah, felt! Felt! They die Maria. They don't come back. Maria: "Unless THEY  do. Unless WE do. Keep on and keep on coming back."

GoodNews:
If that was not the hardest part of the play to wrap my head around...then I was confronted with the title: Audrey of Sorrow. Don't be fooled by the other  characters in the play ...some hilarious Audrey is the puppet master. She is pulling all the  strings controling everyone. But while reading the play I did not realize that...only after finishing the...book  I stared to make sense of it all. Sorrow, it seems like a concept we all have dealt with.

GoodNews:
But Marina Carr takes it to a whole new level in scenes 8 and 11. Mac (ghost) asks Audrey: "But if they're ghosts what are we? Audrey: We're the living. Death doesn't last very long Mac." Audrey comments on Maria and David: "Look at them, so sad, so full of themselves with sorrow." But Ms Carr saves the most bitterly severe,...a scathing remark about  sorrow for Maria's father in scene 11: "...sorrow does not make you great or stronger or wiser. It depletes. It ravages. It devours.......until you can't remember there was ever a thing called joy."


Conclusion:
It takes a great playwright to put so many  absurd concepts on paper. The dialogue at times tickles the funny bone and at other times...stuns the audience into silence. I've tried to give you an impression how the play  'made me feel'. Last night  I wrote the first draft of this review. I was angry. I could not yet put into words how confused this play had left me. After a good night's sleep I could appreciate the  play in a new way. Ms Carr is not here to please everybody and produce...a play with comforting qualities: clear plot, palusible situations and realistic characters.
She is here to dazzle us!
#Bravo