Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Kate Gilmore disarms in SAFE HOUSE, Enda Walsh and Anna Mullarkey’s bleak, surreal song cycle

• By drediman
• February 25, 2025
• No Comments

Last weekend, I ventured once again out to Brooklyn to catch the Abbey Theatre’s production of Safe House at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The unique show — which is being presented on this side of the pond in association with Irish Arts Center — is the latest creation by Irish playwright Enda Walsh, who over the years has made the theater venue at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge his New York home. Safe House is essentially a song cycle — with music composed by Anna Mullarkey — that expounds on the story of Grace, a young woman on a self-destructive path who uses her imagination to flee from both her traumatic past and her grim present circumstances.

To be sure, Safe House is a bleak show. It’s also a far cry from the kind of psychologically penetrating plays we’re used to seeing from Walsh. Indeed, there’s nary a word of dialogue in the piece, which instead daringly relies solely on songs and visual design to convey its loose narrative. Indeed, the details of Grace’s past and present are intentionally blurred and left to the viewer’s interpretation, which may frustrate some theatergoers. The result is a surreal cabaret inside the troubled heroine’s mind, which mashes distorted memories and mythologies — namely that of Sleeping Beauty (strands of Tchaikovsky’s ballet score weave in and out of the show’s soundscape) and other princess imagery — into a phantasmagorical fun house of sorts. The songs are haunting — Mullarkey’s music is both moody and lyrical, and Walsh’s lyrics about loneliness and sadness are invariably oblique and poetic — if a tad repetitious.

Walsh’s decidedly experimental production is visually striking, thanks largely to Jack Phelan’s dream-like projections and Helen Atkinson’s immersive sound design. Katie Davenport’s seemingly unassuming set has surprises up its sleeves, creating a slew of memorable stage tableaus (the final sequence is especially gorgeous). At the center of it all is Kate Gilmore’s gutsy and disarming solo performance. There’s a bruised yet oddly serene quality of her portrayal of Grace’s retreat from reality and into the comforts of her own imagined world. That Gilmore accomplishes this through song — with vocal stylings poignantly reminiscent of the likes of Björk and Anohni — is of particular note.

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SAFE HOUSE
Off-Broadway, Musical
St. Ann’s Warehouse
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 2