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Our Few and Evil Days
A chilling yet deeply human story about the limits of devotion. Adele and her parents have always been close. But recently, that closeness has been tainted by an increasing sense of mistrust. Tonight, a visit from a stranger will force them to confront the terrifying reality of their relationship.
- GenresPlays
96 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 25, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 21, 2016
I saw the play and immediately bought the script. It's sooo good, but not for the faint of heart.
July 28, 2021
I really enjoyed how this played out. Plenty of tension and surreal moments that made the read worthwhile.
August 9, 2017
Mark O'Rowe is my favorite playwright who also makes me want to throw up every time I finish one of his plays.
January 3, 2020
Very natural dialogue, in a story that starts out feeling incredibly real, but then moves into a surreal set of circumstances by the end of the play.
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February 26, 2025I need to think about this for like a year before I rate it
October 20, 2014
This is almost certainly a play you have to see onstage to appreciate properly. Sadly for me, I have neither the money nor the opportunities. Boo.
It's very much an actors' play. The first 40 pages were slow to say the least. I read them very quickly because O'Rowe is such a good writer - the dialogue just slips off the page - and he toys with expectations masterfully. The setting is a middle-class respectable home (aren't they always in drama) in Ireland. Adele is bringing her boyfriend, the slighter older Dennis, home to meet her parents, except that she keeps getting distracted by her needy best friend, Belinda, who's being messed around by her boyfriend, Gary. Dennis appears to know just a little too much about the family, who are still haunted by the loss of their young son Jonathan when Addie was nine, but things only really start getting weird when Dennis appears to know just a little too much about the family background.
It's mostly a mystery, which the other (official) reviews seem afraid to divulge. What happened to Jonathan all those years ago? Is it something to do with the fact that his and Addie's mother, Margaret, only sleeps on the couch? What about their father and his fits of rage? What about what Addie overheard the night he disappeared and never came back? Characterisation and development are kind of sacrificed for mystery and atmosphere in this one, but it was still an eerie, fascinating, and compelling read.
I always guess. I can't stop myself. Was it the father's violence? Was it the mother's? Was it really just a confused mistake on the daughter's part? Are they just lying to her? Well, this play was great for that - always giving one impression, and then organically sliding away from it to another, hinting at a picture of a very disturbed family. I read this all in one sitting, totally addicted and desperate to know what happened. O'Rowe got me, too - I didn't guess (despite the use of a rather cringe-inducing common trope).
Then - the revelation came. A lot of the reviews have talked about the thematic concerns of the play - about he limits of devotion, parenting, family tragedy and guilt. Well...I didn't really get any of that.The problem is, with this material in such obviously assured hands (this is my first O'Rowe play, but the professionalism and the intrigue was truly something), it's hard not to want -- more.
The main revelation comes in its penultimate scene (or one of them - it's all set in one location and there are a combination of very long and not so long scenes, and there's not much of a sense of the passage of time except the gap between Act 1+2 so I'm not absolutely sure how they divide up). The questions that this incredibly dark and probing twist throws up are huge and complex and important, and had me absolutely gasping for breath, as well as (an incredibly rare one for jaded old me, so prone to roll my eyes and say, c'mon, it's not that bad," or, "that's what I waited all this time for?" Instead, this one had me saying, "wow, this is too dark for me, this is really testing my limits..." which was a new, strange thing, but at the same time, it was completely well-earned and interesting.
As you can see from the spoiler tag: a ton of questions, all of them incredibly provocative and harrowing to even consider. My underlying and fundamental problem with the play is that what comes before is nowhere near as complex or really as interesting. I understand the stylistic choice to keep Belinda and Gary offstage until Act 2, but that made it hard for me to care when it all went down. Dennis was basically just a loop into the story, to tease the characters' back stories, but there was nothing all that meaty about the play until The Revelation (at the 80% mark - which meant that we'd spent something like an hour minimum of being teased, misdirected and being given ~thematic parallels that don't really mean much in the grand scheme of the story when you're mostly just reading to find out a solution). When the solution comes and you suddenly want more from the characters, you want to know how they're going to relate to each other and how they ever did in the first place, and then it just ends. This play is like a really interesting phone conversation when the other person tells you something you're dying to discuss and then they have to go but, instead of saying goodbye, they just hang up. Worth your time? Probably -- the very last moment will stick with me for a long, long time.
It's very much an actors' play. The first 40 pages were slow to say the least. I read them very quickly because O'Rowe is such a good writer - the dialogue just slips off the page - and he toys with expectations masterfully. The setting is a middle-class respectable home (aren't they always in drama) in Ireland. Adele is bringing her boyfriend, the slighter older Dennis, home to meet her parents, except that she keeps getting distracted by her needy best friend, Belinda, who's being messed around by her boyfriend, Gary. Dennis appears to know just a little too much about the family, who are still haunted by the loss of their young son Jonathan when Addie was nine, but things only really start getting weird when Dennis appears to know just a little too much about the family background.
It's mostly a mystery, which the other (official) reviews seem afraid to divulge. What happened to Jonathan all those years ago? Is it something to do with the fact that his and Addie's mother, Margaret, only sleeps on the couch? What about their father and his fits of rage? What about what Addie overheard the night he disappeared and never came back? Characterisation and development are kind of sacrificed for mystery and atmosphere in this one, but it was still an eerie, fascinating, and compelling read.
I always guess. I can't stop myself. Was it the father's violence? Was it the mother's? Was it really just a confused mistake on the daughter's part? Are they just lying to her? Well, this play was great for that - always giving one impression, and then organically sliding away from it to another, hinting at a picture of a very disturbed family. I read this all in one sitting, totally addicted and desperate to know what happened. O'Rowe got me, too - I didn't guess (despite the use of a rather cringe-inducing common trope).
Then - the revelation came. A lot of the reviews have talked about the thematic concerns of the play - about he limits of devotion, parenting, family tragedy and guilt. Well...I didn't really get any of that.The problem is, with this material in such obviously assured hands (this is my first O'Rowe play, but the professionalism and the intrigue was truly something), it's hard not to want -- more.
The main revelation comes in its penultimate scene (or one of them - it's all set in one location and there are a combination of very long and not so long scenes, and there's not much of a sense of the passage of time except the gap between Act 1+2 so I'm not absolutely sure how they divide up). The questions that this incredibly dark and probing twist throws up are huge and complex and important, and had me absolutely gasping for breath, as well as (an incredibly rare one for jaded old me, so prone to roll my eyes and say, c'mon, it's not that bad," or, "that's what I waited all this time for?" Instead, this one had me saying, "wow, this is too dark for me, this is really testing my limits..." which was a new, strange thing, but at the same time, it was completely well-earned and interesting.
As you can see from the spoiler tag: a ton of questions, all of them incredibly provocative and harrowing to even consider. My underlying and fundamental problem with the play is that what comes before is nowhere near as complex or really as interesting. I understand the stylistic choice to keep Belinda and Gary offstage until Act 2, but that made it hard for me to care when it all went down. Dennis was basically just a loop into the story, to tease the characters' back stories, but there was nothing all that meaty about the play until The Revelation (at the 80% mark - which meant that we'd spent something like an hour minimum of being teased, misdirected and being given ~thematic parallels that don't really mean much in the grand scheme of the story when you're mostly just reading to find out a solution). When the solution comes and you suddenly want more from the characters, you want to know how they're going to relate to each other and how they ever did in the first place, and then it just ends. This play is like a really interesting phone conversation when the other person tells you something you're dying to discuss and then they have to go but, instead of saying goodbye, they just hang up. Worth your time? Probably -- the very last moment will stick with me for a long, long time.
October 27, 2014
Absolute shit
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews