As a die-hard Die Hard fan I jumped at the chance to see Alan Rickman in John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey. Upon laying eyes on the set a lady nearby knowingly muttered “ah, snow!” much in the way I knowingly mutter “ah, fat suit!” at the beginning of those hilarious Eddie Murphy-plays-everyone romps. At this point, the realisation dawned on me that I was in for an intense couple of hours of Ibsen – and not an evening of light entertainment.

As the drama unfolds it becomes apparent that many years ago respected banker Borkman was jailed for misusing clients’ funds and, since his release, has imprisoned himself (in a somewhat gothic manner) in the upstairs of his home. Unhappy? Yes. Regretful? No. Instead he blames an old friend for betraying him and waits in vain to be reinstated to his former eminent role in society. He is dislikeable, petulant, cruel and of course masterfully portrayed by Alan Rickman.

On the ground floor of this delightful “home sweet home” is Borkman’s wife Gunhild, played with great intensity and passion by Fiona Shaw in an exceptional performance. Obsessed with restoring the name of Borkman to its former glory, she smothers her son in the process. Her ice-queen sister Ella (the excellent Lindsay Duncan) has also been destroyed by Borkman’s ambition and arrives at the house with her own selfish agenda. All three are obsessed with making their own mark on the future and Erhart, the son, is clawed and fought over by all three with no thought for his own wishes.

The most humane character in the drama is Foldal, the humble clerk who is portrayed sensitively by John Kavanagh. He is the only person to regularly visit the isolated Borkman, yet he is treated with disdain, and Gunhild even sneers at his meagre financial loss. As a family the elder members are as cold-hearted as the snow which dominates the landscape of a beautiful set designed by Tom Pye. Unfortunately this lack of likeability also leaves the audience cold: making it impossible to care about the fate of the characters.

It would be impossible to watch Frank McGuinness’ new adaptation of Ibsen’s play about a disgraced banker without drawing comparisons to modern day, and indeed it is perfect timing for this production. Experiencing such high-calibre acting certainly made for a memorable and worthwhile evening; however, I’m in no rush to meet these characters again. If I need a fix of Rickman in a snowy setting I’ll just press play on Die Hard. After all, to paraphrase Hans Gruber, “Now I have it on DVD- ho ho ho.”

John Gabriel Borkman is playing in the Abbey Theatre until November 20^th.

The Silver Tassie opened in the Everyman Palace Theatre on Tuesday, October 12^th. Seán O’Casey, the playwright, once commented on the play saying it was like “a generous handful of stones, aimed indiscriminately, with the aim of breaking a few windows. I don’t think that it makes a good play, but it’s a remarkable one.” The Silver Tassie often floats between the stark realism of working class Dublin in the early years of the 20th century and the surrealism of the battlefields of the First World War. O’Casey’s analysis of the play being like stones thrown indiscriminately holds true as the play deals with subjects from love, war, loss and domestic violence. The central character is Harry Heegan, the star of his local football club embodies the drastic changes that the First World War brought to this working class community.

The play is broken into four acts. In the first act we see life as it exists and the relationships between characters before the men set sail for the front lines in France. It is the second act that war becomes the reality and behind the march of drumbeat and song we learn that it is nothing but broken men surging forward and retreating backwards like waves on the plains of the Somme. The class issue, a prominent feature in the work of O’Casey, emerges in the second act. The bravery of the working class Dubliners – in stark contrast to the cowardly behaviour of their upper class leader – provokes both humour and the realization that the men at the front lines of the war stand little chance. As their colonel disappeared into safety of the background the audience come to terms with the fact that the fate of the men is sealed.

Acts three and four deal with the soldiers’ return from the front. Everything that was has been inverted. The relationships that existed before their time on the front have drastically changed. A husband who beat his wife in the first act relies totally on the care of his wife by the third act. The play emphasizes the destructive nature of war. It not only destroys limbs but relationships and people’s perception of the world. The Silver Tassie, a cup won by Harry before he sets sail for war becomes the symbol of how fragile life is and how war sucks the strength from it.

The production of The Silver Tassie reaches its peak in the second act when the audience believes it could be on the battlefield with the soldiers. The usual set for this act is the ruins of a monastery but this production of The Silver Tassie plants a life-size tank on the stage which left the audience ducking their heads to avoid being shot by its huge guns.

O’Casey was right when he said that it is not a great play. No character is allowed to fully evolve and it is hard to feel compassion for those who come out on the wrong side of the war.  However, the play delivers a shock to the audience as to how horrific war is and what it did to this small group of working class Dubliners, and it is this that is the key message of O’Casey and thankfully, this production does the playwright justice.

Originally appeared in the November 2010 issue of Motley