Peat review: A superb childhood adventure about coping and moving on

Two friends bury a dead cat in Kate Heffernan's comedy for young audiences, and unearth serious questions about the world they've inherited. Photo: Ros Kavanagh

The Ark, Dublin

Mar 2-31

★ ★ ★ ★

Unsure of his surroundings and afraid of dirtying his runners, Jo is struggling to come to terms. Led to a stretch of bog outside town, he prepares to bury his cat - killed after one tussle too many with the garbage truck.

You might expect a play about children and dead pets to be something of a downer. But early on in Kate Heffernan’s superb comedy for young audiences, produced by The Ark, Jo’s daring friend Rayy starts digging a hole, thrilled by the thought of discovering artefacts. It sets into a motion a childhood adventure with archaeological mystery. 

While disputing facts and questioning myths about dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals, Curtis-Lee Ashqar’s Jo and Kwaku Fortune’s Rayy involve the audience, who supply their own informed feedback. In equal measure Heffernan’s script takes more subtle turns. When Jo hears a mysterious sound, for instance, his intuition jumps from birds to turbines, tracing the destruction of habitats.

Maybe that’s why the stage of director Tim Crouch’s production less resembles a bog than it does a gallery: for the play’s sly findings to put on display. At one point Rayy uncovers what he believes to be an ancient fossil, but on closer inspection is revealed as a plastic carton. 

As a speculated piece of gold turns into a shiny piece of litter, and a chunk of unfinished motorway recalls the economic crash, this charming comedy unearths some serious questions about the world children have inherited. A small scrap of trash is held in such odious detail by the live projection of Lian Bell’s set, it transforms from exciting relic to toxic pollution. 

When Rayy digs up an elegant marble, inscribed with streaks of vibrant colour, it sends the boys thinking about their parents' childhood. This is the impermanence that passes by all of us, whether the audience recognises it in a milk carton expired in 2017, or in an action figure from twenty years ago. 

If Fortune’s buoyant and quick-witted Rayy is focused on burying and memorialising the dead cat, Ashqar’s Jo is still struggling with grief. “If you have something special you should keep it,” he says, when his friend suggests they sell a discovered old coin for a fortune. 

But the play will also generously allow for the boys’ dreams of things to come, suggesting there is a future to salvage. Peat then is touchingly consoling: we will cope, we will move on.