Conclusion Review – A very funny account with relationship dystopia | platform

IIt’s hard to focus on writing a memoir when a nuclear reactor flashes nearby and the neighbors kill themselves. Playwright John Morton and director Jamie Fay extract maximum black humor from this dystopian film set in the year 2048 at the end of days. As Liam (Patrick O’Kane) and Edel (Anna Healy) hide out in a remote mountainside cabin, gradually engulfed by smoke and fire, they have no idea how many hours remain before everything is obliterated.

In the high stakes of this drama, the focus is not on the possible causes of global catastrophe, but on bringing this long-married couple to the point of crisis as their time runs out. What happens, bleakly, are the different ways in which each character tries to reach some kind of reckoning with their lives: through drugs and alcohol, a crazy dance, or a makeshift prayer. As Idel tries to contact his adult children and friends, keeping in touch with the outside world via patchy phone calls, the conversations and media bulletins all carry news of death and horror.

Ingeniously designed by Mary Kearns (set) and Chris Warner (sound) to serve as a graveyard for outdated technology, their fortified hut is dominated by digital time signals, flashing numbers and ancient video screens. As Liam writes his memoir “powerful prose” on a manual typewriter, his insistence seems driven by an uneasy sense of guilt; He is writing a confession. “It’s all your fault,” he mutters, blaming himself, for reasons that are hinted at and later unnecessarily explained.

His hands are never far from his gun, and Liam initially appears to be the more volatile of the pair, but Edel has her own reckless destructive impulses. In O’Kane and Healy’s stirring, emotionally diverse performances, their confrontations escalate dangerously. With or without the shocking premise, the poignancy of their image of marriage burns.