Starting block

Conor McPherson’s new play is set in dust-bowl Minnesota in 1934. We’re in a fly-blown boarding house owned by skint, kindly Nick who has designs on a sexy widow with a big inheritance coming. Good opening. Roll the story. But there’s more. Nick’s useless son is a depressed novelist entangled with a beautiful governess betrothed to a rich man she doesn’t love. An even better opening. Roll the story. But wait. Nick has a black maid called Marianne whom he rescued as a baby and raised as one of the family. An interesting complication. Roll the story. No wait. Marianne claims to be pregnant but declines to reveal whether the father is a rapist or an honourable suitor. And local gossips whisper that her baby bump is fictional. Fascinating. Can we roll the story, please? Not yet. Enter Elizabeth, a manic little poppet, who crashes around the lounge claiming that Mr Perry, a rickety old cobbler, made improper advances towards her and asked her to fondle his ‘Viennese sausage’. Mr Perry, aged 70, shows up and denies Elizabeth’s allegations while trying to woo pregnant Marianne with a cheap bunch of flowers.

Things are getting pretty cluttered in the boarding house and the story hasn’t started yet. Enter a shifty preacher whose hobbies include blackmailing crooks and groping unattended women. With him is ‘Jungle’ Joe Scott, a local boxing champ, who was recently jailed for an armed robbery he didn’t commit. Ready for the story yet? Yes, please. But here come more drifters: a down-and-out businessman whose bottle-blonde wife is flirting with prostitution and whose grown-up son, Elias, is severely handicapped and keeps yelling out, ‘My scarecrow’s lost its hat.’ And finally, after a speech from a mopey doctor, the story begins.