The Telephone Exchange

An irreverent, joyful look at women's lives in the 1960s. The fledgling Five Lamps company discovered a diamond in the rough with The Telephone Exchange - a witty piece, acted with energy and gusto, that follows the lives and loves of four young friends working as phone operators in 1960s Dublin. Flatmates Mags and Dymphna are progressive, fun-loving and fiercely independent, in sharp contrast to the demure Nora, a functional carer to her aged and curmudgeonly mother, and neophyte Evelyn whose initial raison d'etre is a tenuous marriage plan. These familiar characters allow the audience to comfortably slip into the circumstances presented, especially when the story is told with the sense of fun on display here. The play is directed by its writer, Niamh Gleeson, who worked on it in collaboration with the cast, the result of which is an obvious insularity - perhaps the production's one drawback. While The Telephone Exchange plays to the actors' strengths, the action occasionally suffers. A lengthy detour into the funeral of a malevolent minor character comes at the expense of the very real drama of Dymphna's battered mother, so brilliantly introduced, but thereafter referred to only in passing. Each of the four characters is dealt an emotional blow of some kind, but in the cases that really matter they capitulate to circumstance. Perhaps this serves to demonstrate something of a requisite stoicism of Irish women during that era, but it would be more interesting to see them put up a struggle when events topple them from the height of independence into restrictive gender roles. These are smart young women, and they deserve more of a fight. The treatment is realistic but leaves us wanting more. But we'll get more - Gleeson plans to dramaturge the piece further in anticipation of a nationwide tour (and hopefully a return to Dublin), and add some twenty minutes of material which would likely expand the piece to two acts. Well worth a look. The Telephone Exchange played at the Teachers Club, Parnell Square, and will tour nationally this Autumn.