Denouement
- Chris O'Rourke
- 2 minutes ago
- 3 min read
****
If Millennials aren’t aging well, in John Morton’s dystopian Denouement, Gen Alpha doesn't get to age at all. Doomed to die in the not so distant future as the world is destroyed during their watch. Married Millennial's Liam and Edel wiling away their final hours in the societal wilderness that is The Sticks. Liam typing a hard copy of his memoirs which no one will likely read, Edel attempting to contact their emigrant children for a final goodbye. Meanwhile, their marriage is crumbling around them. Leaning into sci-fi apocalypse, Denouement comes up sci-fi short. Its weak ploy of society tethering on the brink of collapse facilitating an introduction to Existentialism 101. Positing Camus’ suicide dilemma; how to live in the face of an impending, absurd and meaningless death? Denouement punching above its philosophical and sci-fi weight. Yet, under Jimmy Fay’s well honed direction, landing some killer blows and winning on points.
As sci-fi allegories go, Morton’s real time affair never compellingly articulates its dystopian universe. Luckily designer Maree Kearns picks up the slack and fashions a windswept, Universal Horror night-scape engulfing a bric a brac shed of broken pasts and breaking technologies piled high and ready to totter. Chris Warner’s sound and compositions delivering irregular interruptions of booms, barks, radio transmissions and on the nose retro tunes from Billie Joe Spears to Patrick Hernandez. Kearns and Warner's terrific designs transforming Morton’s lazily sketched metaphor into a vivid reality. One richly informing the play’s uneasy relationship between intimacy and distance. Papering over a lack of tension as, dramatically, it's hard to get excited about will he, won’t he finish his memoir, or make her call, before the final countdown blows the world to bits. Like Edel craving her husband’s attention, Denouement makes something of an ask of your indulgence.
Which is handsomely repaid by a terrific Anna Healy and Patrick O’Kane. A loving, lovelorn couple caught between the lure of nostalgia and living in the moment when the moment is one you don’t want to live in. Looking to give their lives and marriage meaning by navigating a personal litany of half baked failures and misunderstandings to arrive at something that resembles closure. A kitchen sink drama with a pretty unique sink. Offering simplistic, sentimental answers inadequate to the depth of Denouement’s questions. Even so, the final image speaks to truth. As does a wild dance sequence on some of the fastest acting cocaine ever snorted, a zoom call when pretence is dropped, the relentless typing to leave some etching of legacy, and a momentary phone call that heals an eternity and seeks, as does Denouement, to speak to our crying need for connection.
“When nothing makes sense, the only thing to hold onto is sense.” Alas, that’s like repeating the same action and hoping for a different outcome. And assumes we know what sense is. A muddled meander down memory lane to give meaning to something that requires none? Whatever rocks your Armageddon boat, and Denouement certainly rocks on occasion. If it punches above its sci-fi and philosophical weight, at least it’s in the ring taking swings at the bigger, meatier questions. As is Lyric Theatre, Belfast. Preparing to celebrate 75 years of some of the finest, most exciting theatre during 2026.
Denouement, by John Morton, runs at Lyric Theatre, Belfast, until November 15.
For more information visit Lyric Theatre, Belfast
