Starring Rose Henderson

(Father Ted/Fair City/Weighing In/Take Off Your Cornflakes)

Directed by Caroline FitzGerald

According to Sydney, everything has gone into decline: morality, masculinity, social behaviour…  According to Sydney, the colour green should be outlawed.  According to Sydney, plays should be dark, funny and short.

Rose Henderson plays Ruth, a law graduate who has been married for twenty-five years to the opinionated Sydney, who has sadly died.  It’s important to spot the warning signs when a loved one is driving you over the edge, but did Ruth help him on his way?  Did she go too far, in the end?  Who is the woman who turned up at his funeral, wearing red shoes?  Ruth didn’t mean to kill him… but in the end, something had to give.

 One woman on a park bench. 

Sunday Times 20/2/2011

Ruth’s husband of 25 years has died and she is angry, not at death for taking Sydney away but at herself for putting up with him for so long.  Sydney had strict views about everything, from declining social behaviour to why Ruth’s shoes had to be dull in colour. 

Sitting on a park bench, Ruth (Rose Henderson) remembers the “other woman” who turned up to her husband’s funeral wearing red heels.  Ruth’s fury relates not to sexual betrayal so much as images of herself at home giving in to Sydney’s strict views, and his Swedish mistress enjoying herself on his business junkets.  Ruth feels she has been taken for granted, and after years of suffering in silence, she is finally ready to vent.  It’s worth giving her a hearing. Eithne Shortall