Act 2 starts off with the wedding feast of Carthage and Caroline. Barbara Brennan as Mrs Kilbride, the mother of the groom, and Father Willow (Patrick Waldron) the priest are sitting down at the table, before the scenes are interrupted by the arrival of Hester Swane dressed bride-like, in virginal white, a dress that had been given to her by the groom at today’s wedding. She is determined not to be driven away from the village by these people and is to keep custody of her daughter. she feels wrong and betrayed and vows to take from Carthage Kilbride whatever she can. She burns down the home that he and Caroline are to share, she torches his livestock, and to spare their daughter from the misery of a childhood without her mother, Hester Swane herself takes their daughter with her to death because Hester herself has experienced life without a mother and therefore does not want her daughter to go through the same.
This play is in its original form, and this modern. the play is powerful and enjoyable. The acting is generally strong, especially from young Kate Costello who was playing Josie Swane the night I watched. The way she just came in the scene singing was really good and created tension to the audience. Josie Swane does not know what’s happening in the scene but the audience do and that makes it effective because the audience are thinking one thing but Josie Swane is thinking another, and she thinks everything is going to be fine, whereas the audience have an idea as to what is going to happen.
Hester Swanes Irish accent is alright, but it wasn’t very good as she is American and not Irish. So I think that she can improve on that.
In this play I enjoyed the ending of it because it was interesting and you wouldn’t think that Hester would kill her daughter (Josie) because of the bond they had between them to. When Hester had Josie on the floor I didn’t think that she was going to kill her, I thought someone was going to come in the scene and stop it, but that did not happen. When she killed Josie I was shocked, and it was sad. When the ghost fancier then came at the end, it was then the time to take Hester away, so he stabbed her. I found that hard to watch because it looked real and terrifying. Overall the play was very good and it had a lot of tension created between the audiences because it made the audience think at some point.
The set was very effective and it was organised well. It was set in the dark and murky bogs or rural Irelands. The costume they used was good and appropriate for the characters and the type of scene they were playing like when Hester came in the wedding scene with the white bride-like dress that was shocking to the characters in the play because that was the dress she wore on her wedding day. The usage of lighting was used effectively especially at the beginning when they had the spot light on Hester.
Hester Swane is played by Holly Hunter, a Hollywood star making a brief visit to the West End. Hunter is not a flashy star-like actress. Holly Hunter played Hester Swane very good and strong, because it was a hard thing to do and she had the most lines to play. Holly Hunter is American so it must have been very hard for her to play as an Irish woman and to put on the Irish accent. The way she was acting was brave.
Xavier Cassidy is played by Trevor cooper. He had a strong and dramatic part in the play. He was the father of Caroline and he looked out for her and wanted all the best for his daughter. Unfortunately he didn’t turn out the best. When he had the gun to Hester’s head, it looked like he was going to shoot her, but turned out he didn’t have the guts to. This had the audience very shocked because the audience thought that he was a tuff man because of the way he was acting. He was acting like hes a big man and has killed many people but truly he hasn’t.
The ghost fancier is played by Darren Greer. This character did not take that much part in the play, but when he did come up on stage he was scary. He didn’t say much either. Even though he didn’t say much, it showed that hes someone important in the play because he said that he has to come and collect Hester and that leave the audience thinking why?
