Another football play … but the Gaelic version this time
Written by Philip Catherwood, The Pitch, set in East Belfast, is a charming and sensitive play. One of a spate of recent shows about football (Dear England, Red Pitch), Catherwood’s play distinguishes itself by its careful exploration of Northern Ireland, still so often defined by its sectarian divides, through the rivalry between the predominantly Catholic-played Gaelic Football, and what obsessed fan and unionist Robbie would call football football.
The story unfolds, true to its name, on ‘the pitch’ – local to all three of its characters: brother and sister Robbie (James Grimm) and Melissa (Dion Di Maio), and newly made acquaintance Deren (Jake Douglas). The set is straightforward, but effective; a set of goalposts and a square of grass.
Robbie and Mel have been training together here since they were children, but they had never met Deren before. He belongs to a different club, and Robbie soon discovers exactly what kind of a club. The discovery that Deren plays Gaelic football, and is a Catholic to boot, is met with ridicule and derision by Robbie, and puts an abrupt end to what could perhaps have been a budding friendship.
The exploration of a specific socio-cultural-political moment through a microcosm – in this case, football – is a well-rehearsed dramatic trope, but not any less well-loved for it. Done well, this can still be a powerful and moving statement to the forces of history and the way that they act upon individual lives, shaping hopes, dreams and relationships.
Grimm is excellent as the taut, defensive teenage Robbie, his anger thinly veiling his fear, his resistance to change. Mel (Di Maio) acts mostly as a device to relieve tension, and to give voice to elder brother Robbie’s vulnerabilities, fears, secrets – to an extent she plays this role for Deren too.
Deren (Douglas) is an exquisitely written and performed character, sensitive and lonely, but it’s here that I think there’s some potential lost. The script only really hints at some of what this character is experiencing, as a queer Catholic man raised in Belfast. But it’s Deren that contains the raw material to make a strong lead, with a depth and complexity which are rather underexplored in the play’s current iteration.
Instead the play focuses rather more on Robbie, who nevertheless is extremely moving as he comes to terms with the future, with a life and a Northern Ireland that looks different to what he has known, and with his past mistakes. Grimm is without doubt a significant talent, but his character remains the least interesting of the three.
A tender Irish coming-of-age story, with a lot of important stories to tell – but some of the more important stories are left underexplored.