Crossan gives him just the right dose of demure vexation at their circumstance. Colgan's Skinner is a grimy, hungry, duly exaggerated elf. Cusack conveys the affecting humor that embodies her essential state of denial. Together they are the mind, heart and soul, respectively, of the play. Friel has not written a straightforward three-hander, however.
Freedom begins where it ends, with three dead bodies across the apron on the stage.
But these should be accents not action. The cumulative effect is to reduce the immediacy of the play's core and lessen its potency. This has always been a difficult play for the Irish to perform because of the open wounds with which it tampers. But if Friel could write it, others should be able to stage it. Two final notes.