MAXIMUM JOY (Can I lick the crumbs from your table?)
This was the first of a trio of plays I saw on Wednesday night so forgive me if I can’t quite remember all the details. Though I did try my hand at scribbling in the dark - deciphering your own scribbly, overlapped writing is such fun!
I didn’t know what to expect from Maximum Joy. It was billed as this on the festival website:
Wanna watch a girl trying to be in a show? It’s set in 1979, in 1990, in a warehouse, in the bedroom of your family home. A girl who’s not called Doireann Coady has gotten to the point where she’s crawling around your kitchen floor. You’re gonna have to kick her out because she is singing very loudly on your front lawn. It’s a struggle, a fight, it’s like playing an old record on repeat. It feels like a movement, a concert or a fire, like ripping up the curtains after a gaff party. You will definitely need a slice of bread to sober up afterwards.
However the reality was a lot more subdued than the billing or the accompanying pictures would lead you to believe.
Doireann is a fairly quiet girl, happy to spend time alone, pottering round her flat, thinking, smoking, listening to music, thinking, smoking, listening to music, thinking, smoking…you get the picture. There was also a bath. She’s trying to be famous but in her own head, in her own flat, no sign of her leaving.
If that sounds like your thing, there is one more performance tonight at 5pm (it’s 40 minutes long) in Smock Alley Studio Theatre, tickets are €12.00 and you can buy them on the website or at the door.
