An office worker transforms into an action hero in this energetic physical production by the Corn Exchange, Dublin. Think The Secret Life of Walter Mitty meets Hitchcock’s The Lodger meets the latest SF blockbuster or fantasy computer game.
The juxtaposition of inane chit-chat and life-or-death fights provides plenty of humour. The humming of the photocopier becomes the buzzing of a fly, and before you know it the imagination has taken off. Black-and-white film footage and shadow effects help create sinister other worlds.
Some recurring scenes do provide a non-linear narrative to explain the character’s inner demons. There’s the time when his father announces while fishing that his mother has ‘gone to a better place’. ‘Another hospital?’ Asks the boy. His dad tells him to kill the fish quickly to put it out of its misery. A letter entrusted to an army friend with his ashes suggests the father later committed suicide.
Another thread seems to be the protagonist’s fear of ‘Roscommon’. Various interpretations are possible, but I understood this as an office move, perhaps that the traumatised employee had to change his Dublin desk and commute to a decentralised location, complete with cows.
The mime is manic, and performer Paul Reid puts in a marathon performance. For an hour and a half, you see not only sophisticated movement, complete with death-defying action sequences and bullets ricocheting around, but also the growing sweat marks through his suit and make-up.
Arguably, the piece is a little too long. The reprises were enjoyable and perhaps my attention span has been Fringified, but the structure could have been tighter. The combination of soporific heat during an afternoon performance and the continuous onstage feats was gently uncomfortable. A few parts, such as tube or train travel, were a bit clichéd. And although the performer was making an effort to play to the sides of the auditorium, the direction could seem wrong for the space, with the projections less suited to a thrust stage.
Man of Valour is touching, amusing, deft and ostensibly daring. It does have weaknesses and could drag. Perhaps there’s also something safe now about moving the much-loved festival monologue in Traverse Two into the physical theatre sphere. However, its story of struggle behind a supposedly humdrum office routine was conveyed in style through mime.