The Weir

For the National Trust property, see The Weir Garden.

The Weir
Promotional poster for the Irish Theatre Group
Written by	Conor McPherson
Date premiered	1997
Place premiered	Royal Court Theatre Upstairs London
Original language	English
Subject	a publican and three of his regulars attempt to spook a newcomer from Dublin but end up themselves frightened
Genre	Drama
Setting	a bar in rural Ireland
IOBDB profile

The Weir is a play written by Conor McPherson in 1997. It was first produced at The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London, England, on 4 July 1997. It first appeared on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on 1 April 1999. It has since been performed in Toronto, Dublin, Belfast, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Chicago, Buffalo, Washington, D.C. and San Jose.

Plot summary

The play opens in a rural Irish pub with Brendan, the publican and Jack, a car mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area.

Finbar, a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscence and the kind of banter which only comes about amongst men who have a shared upbringing. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore: ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings.

Though the imputation from each is that their tale is 'true', there is enough latitude in the storytelling, and sufficient reference to the conventions of a supernatural tales, for the audience to draw their own conclusions as to whether drinkers' yarns are being spun.

After each man (with the exception of Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which outdoes the earlier tales, and the men become softer, kinder, and more real.

Finbar and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a story of personal loss (which, he comments, is at least not a ghostly tale).

The play is typically Irish, sad and sweet, and is as much about lack of close relationships and missed connections as it is about anything else. The weir of the title is a hydroelectric dam on a nearby waterway that is mentioned only in passing as Finbar describes the local attractions to Valerie.

Characters

• Jack, a mechanic and garage owner in his fifties.
• Brendan, the owner of the pub in which the play is set. He is in his thirties.
• Jim, Jack's assistant, in his forties.
• Finbar Mack, a local businessman in his late forties.
• Valerie, a Dublin woman in her thirties.

Cast

Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, UK (Original cast)

• Finbar, Dermot Crowley
• Jim, Kieran Ahern
• Jack, Jim Norton
• Brendan, Brendan Coyle
• Valerie, Michelle Fairley

National Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic:

• Finbar, Václav Postránecký
• Jim, Jan Hartl
• Jack, Alois Švehlík
• Brendan, Alexej Pyško
• Valerie, Miluše Šplechtová

Garza Theatre, Post, Texas

Cast includes: Todd Eldridge, Dan Donahue, John Davis, Patrick Jones and Lara Brier

Critical response

Reviews of The Weir have been positive. It won the Lawrence Olivier BBC Award as the Best New Play of 1997–98. In addition, McPherson won the Critics' Circle Award as the most promising playwright in 1998 as a direct result of the success of The Weir. The play has received lofty praise, such as "beautifully devious," "gentle, soft-spoken, delicately crafted work," and "this is my play of the decade...a modern masterpiece."

The Weir was voted one of the 100 most significant plays of the 20th Century in a poll conducted by the Royal National Theatre, London. It tied at 40th place with Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, Samuel Beckett's Endgame and Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge.

Awards and nominations

• 1999 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play

Further reading

• McPherson, Conor (1997). The Weir (First edition ed.). London: Nick Hern Books. ISBN 1854593684. 

External links

• The Weir at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Weir at the Internet Movie Database