Misterman review, Lyttelton

Cillian Murphy is an extraordinary actor. His eyes are so blue, they're transfixing twenty rows back. In Misterman he single-handedly holds together eighty minutes of Enda Walsh's relentless narrative onslaught, slipping in and out of character and running around the vast stage of the Lyttelton punching gantrys and performing in pouring rain. This is real staying power, but the star and the writer go back to the days of Disco Pigs, so there is clear sychronicity.

Smurphy 

As the miserable, misfit, Misterman of the title, Murphy is aided and abetted by the finest lighting and sound people in the business who have created an extraordinary sensate landscape. In terms of spectacle as well as star, this production with its industrial warehouse set and perfectly timed and framed sound and lighting, are top dollar. In terms of content, it's a short history of watching paint dry in Irish.

Walsh writes dark, fantastical stories about the delusions and deceits that mark the smallest of lives. This works well in small, inclusive, spaces. The Cottesloe staging of his truly brilliant The Walworth Farce is still seared on our eyeballs. At the Lyttelton, his narratives are dwarfed and punching above their weight. This is draining, although Murphy is great, scuttling around recording the behaviour of the inhabitants of Inishfree in his notebook and on his cassette recorder. We never know if the wrongs he perceives are real or happening only in his head. When the ending finally comes it is unexpected and terrific, but this is partly because it's the first time we care.

In conclusion:  As a star vehicle we have an Aston Martin running on a Ford Mondeo engine. The star and the styling are bigger and more shiny than the small story that is driving the production. It needs a contained space like The Tricycle.

References
National Theatre, buy tickets