Cast
Crew and Creatives
When booking the tickets to see Shroud I was excited to see how the creatives behind this piece would unpack such a dense topic. The story revolves around two priests and a bishop in an Dublin church and their dark problem with underage alter boys. I remember reading articles about this a few years ago when a lot of Polish priests were exposed so I was curious to see how do you portray this in a sensitive way. Shroud did anything but that. It was honestly pathetic.
It was so bad in fact that when the lights went out at the end of the performance, the 9 audience member's, of which two were me and a friend I had unfortunately dragged with me, looked around confused and didn't start clapping until the lights came back on and the actors bowed. With some people so shocked by what we just witnessed all they describe it as was "interesting" with their jaws slacked.
There was a scene where the new priest gets busted and has to confess to what he’s been doing with the children. He keeps trying to minimise his crimes but the bishop keeps prying him until he explicitly expressed exactly what he did. The scene played out for most of the performance. I disliked the delivery of lines, I fully understand the intention but Bernard Field’s performance feels like a child being told off for drawing on the wall.
There are Two characters, JP and the mother who honestly could have been cut. John McDonagh plays a foreign Handy man who interrupts serious conversation and was Possibly inserted as comedic relief but wasn't funny. ha ha forgein man doesnt understand the bad church people because he doesnt speak english. He feels out of place and is offensive to non-native english speakers. The mother sits besides the audience and runs onto the stage when she finds out her child is dead in the alter. she was on stage for a minute - maybe two. It felt like the producers owed their aunt a favour for sorting out the catering for the crew so wrote her part in to fulfil some dream that died within her when she got pregnant with her first child, you know?
The most uncomfortable part being the excruciatingly long monologue where priest Jonathan confessing his sins to the church people, admitting that he molested and then killed an Alter boy and his distain towards the church. It honestly went on for 10 minutes at least. It was awkward. Especially as the audience was addressed as the members of the church. It felt like a low budget Joker arc.
It is so frustrating to see something flop so hard. The stage built character, the actors were ambitious (but ambitious doesn't always mean good) and the topic has so many layers. If you need a good laugh I would go but otherwise its a big no no.
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