Following well-received runs in London and New York, and the publication of Spallen’s script by Faber and Faber, Pumpgirl opened this week in the Queen’s Drama Studio in Belfast, a location for the temporarily homeless Lyric Theatre.

Set in south Armagh, the play examines the tragic, interrelated lives of three border-town inhabitants: Pumpgirl, the androgynous petrol station attendant of the play’s title; Hammy, her married, petrolhead lover; and Sinead, Hammy’s razor-tongued wife.

The Lyric’s production stars seasoned actors Stuart Graham and Maggie Hayes as the ill-fated married couple, and 22-year-old Newry actress Samantha Heaney as the play’s eponymous protagonist.

There are a number of reasons why I went along to Tuesday’s performance yearning to love this play – not least the fact that Ireland, like Britain, has suffered a dearth of promising young, female dramatists in recent years, and meaty new roles for character-driven actresses are few and far between.

Yet there is something deeply unlikable and incontrovertibly hollow about Spallen’s tale of betrayal, adultery, rape and rural ennui.

Three interweaving monologues are played out on a sparse set with limited movement and no interaction between the characters.

The visual barrenness of Pumpgirl owes much to the play’s low-budget origins, and has since been repackaged by forgiving critics as a canny metaphor for the emotional and social alienation that characterises the lives of these three hapless individuals.

With so little in the way of visual stimulation then, the script is ultimately the thing, and the inadequacy of Spallen’s words is thus acutely brought into focus.

Striving linguistically for authenticity, the first-person narrative is replete with references to Tayto Cheese and Onion and the Buttercrane Centre, yet ultimately fails to effectively tap into the rhythms of regional speech patterns.

The play’s rising sense of pathos is undercut by an unyielding stream of cringing one-liners, smacking too frequently of a writer unable to resist an opportunity for a cheap laugh.

In the production’s defence, Graham, Hayes and Heaney act their socks off in a fruitless attempt at depicting the inner turmoil of their badly-drawn characters.

But with its awkward, overwritten script and sketchy plotline, the cast of Pumpgirl can only be as good as the raw materials they are working with.

Saying that, they receive a standing ovation from a Belfast crowd, so they are obviously doing something right.

Clare Gill

n Pumpgirl plays in the Queen’s Drama Studio in Belfast until September 20, and then tours around Ireland until October 11.