An award-winning play, ‘Green & Blue’ tells the story of a developing friendship between an RUC officer and a Garda officer on the border at the height of the Troubles. This is a beautifully written play about what it means to be human in extraordinary circumstances, and what it’s like to be hunted when you’re protecting a man-made line on the ground.
The play stars two of Northern Ireland’s finest actors, James Doran and Vincent Higgins. James Doran plays Garda officer Eddie O’Halloran, originally from West Cork, patrolling the Monaghan side of the border while Vincent Higgins is David McCabe, an RUC officer whose experience of patrolling the Fermanagh side is vastly different from his southern counterpart.
Set in 1994, just before the IRA ceasefire, the pair recount their experiences, taking in the history of the conflict in Ireland, how they joined their respective organisations and the day-to-day life of working in a disputed territory.
The play is laced with humour, insight and lots of touching moments. Despite their different backgrounds, Eddie and David strike up a common bond and begin to learn more about themselves, their similarities as well as their differences. David’s experiences are harrowing, steeped in violence and the threat of violence, while Eddie’s are much more ordinary except for his occasional run-ins with the local IRA commander.
But there is a brooding sense of what happens on one side of the border affects the other side. The two areas share a mutual dependence. With that air of comradeship felt by two people doing the same job, the pair decide to meet in a farmer’s field that straddles the border and find out that the ‘grass is no greener for sure’ on the other side of this invisible divide.
Every line of the play is loaded, each scene redolent of the overall tragedy of Irish history and its wasted lives. These two ordinary men represent all of us and our place in a divided land. It allows us to glimpse the human beings behind the uniform. It eloquently explores the human cost of man-made borders.
‘Green & Blue’ will be staged at Armagh’s Market Place Theatre on Wednesday 21 September at 8pm. Tickets priced £15 and £13 [concession] can be booked online at www.visitarmagh.com/marketplacetheatre, or through the Box Office on 03300 561 025. This show is part of the Theatre’s Autumn 22 Drama multibuy offer.
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