Synopsis

this thoroughly beguiling play is about a son's need to come to terms with his father and himself, paternity, adolescence, the varieties of familial love and the tricks and distortions of memory. Charlie returns to Dublin to attend his father's funeral. While sorting through Da's papers he is confronted by Da's ghost, who tenaciously inhabits the room and Charlie's mind. The play moves from past to present, from reality to reminiscence to imagined conversations encompassing traumatic moments and the illusions collected to survive. Da had a full, happy life while Charlie is burdened with pessimism. Despite ambivalent feelings towards Da, Charlie comes to admire and love the old man.