Theatre Review: The Brightening Air

Finding beauty in the bickering

The Brightening Air - The Old Vic

By Conor McPherson

2 hours 30 minutes

Back in December, I booked tickets for The Brightening Air based purely on the hazy but positive memory of seeing Conor McPherson’s The Weir in 2014.

The next month, the cast was announced: Chris O’Dowd, Rosie Sheehy, and Brian Gleeson. Another mystical Irish drama from an award-winning playwright and a robust cast of stage and screen stars - what’s not to love?

In April I received the following text from an anonymous friend who had reached the interval:

The brightening air. Old vic.

If you have a ticket. Worth returning or cancelling on yourself

In my humble opinion.

An ominous text to receive, but with a nice reference to a previous Substack - so not all bad. It was followed up an hour later with:

The second act didn’t save it

Vapid monologues trying to sound profound

And endless moving of chairs and set dressing for no fucking reason

Are you seeing it…?

Really wouldn’t bother

Consider my anticipation somewhat deflated.

As I headed into The Old Vic last Tuesday, my head was swimming with the fear of a long, bad play, the stresses of the workday, and the pre-theatre pint I’d deemed essential to shift from office worker to receptive audience member. But as soon as The Brightening Air began, all that background noise disappeared, and I was fully transported to a farmhouse in 1980s Ireland.

The farmhouse is run, poorly, by siblings Billie and Stephen, along with a single farmhand. Into this ramshackle home come their more successful brother Dermot, his estranged wife, his much younger new lover, their blind preacher uncle, and the uncle’s live-in carer. That’s eight main characters, all of whom McPherson tries to give a full narrative arc.

The Brightening Air photography by Manuel Harlan

Plot-wise, McPherson borrows heavily from Uncle Vanya - an observation I was feeling quite smug about until I saw it in every other review. What The Brightening Air adds to the familiar mix of family tension and land ownership is a real air of history, roots, and magic. Behind the farmhouse, we occasionally glimpse a ghostly mirror of the set populated by silhouetted figures - a glimmer of the past that keeps our characters anchored here, perhaps.

Where my friend saw unnecessary furniture moving, I felt it added to the sense of a living, shifting space - one constantly flexing to accommodate the people invading it. Every controversial element felt intentional and only served to further embed these characters in this setting, both in space and in time.

With beautifully scruffy costumes, scuffed furniture, and a cast that gives every performance a lived-in feel, The Brightening Air feels like an old beloved wool jumper with a few holes in it. The three siblings, played by O’Dowd, Sheehy, and Gleeson, have an authentically combative intimacy - the kind that only comes from decades of love and conflict.

And those vapid monologues? For me, they felt full of character and energy. They were never delivered to the audience, but always to someone within earshot and with purpose. That, ultimately, is what this play has more than anything: momentum. Even when one character takes centre stage, the energy doesn’t dip. It builds and shifts in the back-and-forth between friends, foes, and family.

In the second half, McPherson leans into the mythic. A sudden jolt of conflict nudges every character’s arc forward at once. In an otherwise naturalistic setting, there may be supernatural forces at work as each character’s fortune is turned on its head. And yet, even this felt authentic rather than jarring, as events unfold like a tale being told in a quiet corner of a pub.

As the evening winds down, McPherson leans most heavily on Chekhov, with each character granted a quiet denouement in a slower-paced final scene. This sleepy ending was the evening’s main weakness and, paired with a hot auditorium, threatened to lull me to sleep.

Over chai latte, I unpacked the play with my unhappy texter. I saw all of his points, and disagreed with almost every one. And isn’t that the beauty of theatre? One person’s annoying chair moving, vague set design, empty monologues, and inconsistencies are another person’s authentic staging, evocative atmosphere, compelling performances, and mystical undertones.

It reminded me of seeing The Hairy Ape at The Old Vic in 2015; hating it, then being baffled by all the glowing reviews. If there’s anything I love more than theatre, it’s disagreeing about theatre over a chai latte on a Saturday morning.

I would definitely recommend The Brightening Air. Your experience may vary.

Seat: Baylis Circle, B11 - £33

Clear views, but the seats felt far away. As ever, you have to compromise to get an affordable ticket. At The Old Vic, it’s hard to find anything cheaper that doesn’t come with a physical obstacle attached.

Show: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Seat: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

The Brightening Air runs until 14th June 2025.