The Death of Harry Leon - Reviews
Click here to read Finton O'Toole's Full Review
"What if Ireland had allied itself with Nazi Germany during the Second World War? Conall Quinn's compelling new play for Ouroboros Theatre conjures an alternative history of 1939 to 1941. A German-backed, Gaelic-fascist minority seizes control in Dublin and sends Protestants and Jews to concentration camps in the west of Ireland. In the hands of director David Horan and his assured cast, this turn of events seems all too plausible, rooted in the distorted political logic of 1930s Europe and the very real ambiguities of Irish neutrality during the war. .... Quinn asks tough questions about national identity, distorted ideology and xenophobia that are as much about the present as the past."
Helen Meaney, Guardian, 6th February 2009
"Conall Quinn’s fascinating new play for Ouroborus offers both a redress and a cautionary fable, sketching a nimble history of Dublin Jews in the Second World War, then conjuring an alarming alternative reality in which Ireland aligns itself with Germany..... With great skill for exposition and delicate detail, Quinn paints a backdrop of dictatorships, dispossession and a huddled Jewish community drawn from Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Russia. His writing has a classic elegance, but also a contemporary wit.... long after other plays are forgotten, this will be provoking ideas and raising questions."
Peter Crawley, Irish Times, 29th January 2009
"Ouroboros Theatre does full justice to Quinn's ambitiously broad-themed and densely-layered text, while a uniformly superb cast provide some tremendously dramatic confrontations as these divided personalities intermesh in a Dublin racked by disease and death."
John McKeown, Irish Independent, 2nd February 2009
"It’s unusual for a cast of eight to have no weak link in the chain, but this is the case here....... each imbues their character with subtleties of expression and inner turmoil that are fascinating to watch............Effective use is made of Smock Alley Theatre, a refreshingly raw theatre space on the Liffey. The backdrop to Liam Doona’s set - a simplistic, dramatic one which enhances, rather than overpowers, its inhabitants - is an expansive, rough wall of raw brick and stone, on to which words and images are projected denoting the story’s people, times and places.................David Horan’s creative direction gives the play strong momentum........ What evolves is a careful buildup of well-timed sequences which form a multi-faceted, carefully considered production that holds up from several angles............Typically biting Dublin wit peppers Quinn’s occasionally dense, interesting script which, if it was based on fact, would make a fascinating secret history of Ireland. It’s even worth staying in your seat during the interval to listen to Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs play out." Helen Boylan, Sunday Business Post, 1st February 2009
