Rum and Vodka: The Musical

This is a call to all my

Past resignations
It's been too long

- The Foo Fighters

I still felt like I was eighteen or sixteen.

And it came as quite a shock when I realized that this was as good as things were going to get.

- Narrator not named Michael in Rum and Vodka

I am so thrilled to be starting off the fall season with the 1st Irish because, frankly, I am less than thrilled at what comes after. Looking at the "New Season for Theatre" in yesterday's Times, October and beyond looks to be a bit of a bore. Yes, The Seagull with Kristen Scott Thomas has a lot of buzz and makes you want to log on to Ticketmaster, but the rest? This: The Musical!  That: The Musical! This and That: The Musical! It's enough to make a devoted theatre-goer stay home and rewatch Generation Kill for the 4th time. 

      

Now wouldn't Gen Kill: The Musical be something to look forward to rather than Shrek?

On to our first mini-review of 1st Irish. As I said before, if you've seen the show, care to comment because you violently disagree, please do!

The evening began with a Peg Leg Punch: Zyr Vodka, Aquvit, Grapefruit, Lime and something called Orgest. Skaal!

It can be very tedious to hear about someone else's week-end bender if it doesn't involve Jack Lemmon, but Conor McPherson's Rum and Vodka are days of pints and infidelities told by a young Dublin man with a profound poetic simplicity.  R & V's monologue is one of McPherson's earliest works, first produced at University College Dublin in 1992. With this play, McPherson contends that he found his distinctive voice. How appropriate that this festival starts with the successful beginning of one of the greatest playwrights working now.

In R & V,  referring to a cocktail that miraculously cures hangovers, McPherson introduces many of the themes he will continually revisit over the years up to and including last winter's The Seafarer. These themes include isolation and loneliness, sin and redemption, decidedly unromantic sex, and above all - drinking, drinking, and drinking.

The young narrator tells the story of a recent 3 day 

binge that he blamed on losing his job. He
wanders Dublin from pub to pub, from friend to friend: 

"People tried to sell me stuff on Grafton Street, down Suffolk Street, across Dame Street and into Temple Bar. I went to the Norseman and I got lucky. Phil and Declan

had just arrived." 

I'm not sure just how lucky he is. After our protagonist passes out from his many pints and short ones, he acknowledges: "The next thing I remember is Phil picking me up and Declan saying 'He needs a drink.'"

The drunken journey gets more sodden as the day goes on. It takes on an Ulyssesian aspect through Dublin, complete with a Molly that says yes - a Welsh girl he picks up at a Abba tribute concert named Myfanwy.

McPherson's narration sometimes takes on modest beauty reminiscent of William Carlos Williams:

"We sped through town.

People tried to flag our taxi.

I saw fights.

Men and women fighting.

Arguments outside chippers

Drunks asleep in the street

Down North Strand.

People walking home.

It was starting to rain."

This is Dublin in the starkest of alcohol-soaked terms.

Mark Anthony Noonan is wonderful as our unnamed monologist. Directed by John Brant, the preview I attended evidenced all the character's impatience and irritability, but little of the exhaustion and desperation that lies in the character as well. The temptation in staging R & V is to be theatrical, to perform and act out the events of the three day binge, but McPherson's monologues always work best when they are understated. The quiet moments are the most effective. There is a crossroad in the story where the narrator describes violence at a party gone wrong. The horror of our character's assault can be lost if it is buried in the telling of the action. The character's detachment from his own story is symptomatic of his rejection of personal responsibility.

Besides a grim depiction of Irish drinking culture, R & V offers the prototypical McPherson character in search of absolution.   The character offer little true self-examination. The author too holds back judgement but readily offers his story to his audience as if to say "What should we do with this?" Very rarely are McPherson's characters punished for their sins although they freely express them as rather dense penitents to a confessor. Judgement, condemnation or condonation is all up to the audience.  McPherson creates a role for the house just as he has written one for his monologist.

In New York, you're a Mets fan or a Yankee fan. Or a Jets fan or a Giants fan. In theatre, you are a fan of Conor McPherson or Martin McDonagh, falling decidedly into one camp or the other. I am a McPhersonite. There is such authenticity in the small details in his narrative. So preferable to simulated decapitation. 

In McPherson's world, so much depends on a small hand held in another's.  McPherson's everyday gestures are small attempts to "cure life." Our narrator is looking for that cure. He listens to the breathing of his young daughters. It will not cure anything in this character's life,we suspect,  but it certainly will break our hearts.

I can't speak for the effectiveness of rum and vodka on inebriation but I can vouch for the Peg Leg Punch at Elettaria, around the corner from the Manhattan Theatre Source. It was delicious, and I can't wait to go back and try the Navy Grog.

On that note, I will leave you in the days of wine and roses.

Rum And Vodka

20/20 Productions

Sept. 7-9, 14-16, 21-23 @ 9 p.m.

Manhattan Theatre Source

177 MacDougal St.

212-868-4444