'The Brightening Air' by Conor McPherson

14 May 2025

On Saturday we were at the Old Vic theatre in London to see ‘The Brightening Air’ - a new play written and directed by Conor McPherson, author of ‘The Weir’. Set in a remote farmhouse in County Sligo in 1981, ‘The Brightening Air’ is a dark comic tale of family relationships, focussing on three grown-up siblings and the inheritance of their family home. The influence of Chekov is plain from the start and the Irish setting reminded me of the production of 'Vanya', adapted by Simon Stephens starring Andrew Scott, that we saw last year (reviewed here in February 2024). ‘The Brightening Air’ - which takes its title from a poem by W.B. Yeats - also clearly belongs in the tradition of Irish drama from J.M. Synge to Martin McDonagh (with some particular similarities to Synge’s ‘The Well of The Saints’). The Old Vic production has a great cast, including Chris O’Dowd and Brian Gleeson as the warring brothers and Rosie Sheehy (who we last saw as Puck in the RSC production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, reviewed here in March 2024) stealing the show as their autistic sister Billie. There are some wonderful comic lines and brilliant set-piece scenes. It was very enjoyable and I might have been missing something about the allusions to Irish folklore and magic but I wasn’t sure it all added up to a completely coherent plot.