End of Lines Part 2: Stand Clear of the Closing Door

Old Col. Reb - he's adorable, ain't he?

I could have stayed home that night to check out the drama at Ole Miss, but there was drama at the End of Lines. The evening was more like the End of Days, judging by the tone of the 5 one-acts commissioned by the 1st Irish Festival. Inspired by NYC's beloved subway, contemporary Irish and Irish-American playwrights apparently share a post-apocalyptic view of New York. 

The first play, The Housekeeper by Morna Regan is a case of the have-nots stirring up against the haves of Park Avenue. The uprising succeeds and the have-nots have more than they bargained for. Directed by Fiana Toibin, the piece verged on histrionics at all time. Paula Nance is Mary, a young, desperate mother who needs a home for her children. She would like to squat in Beth's grand home, a Manhattan patrician, played by Jacqueline Knapp who brought as much dignity to the role as was possible. There wasn't much. Michael Graves is Hal, the not-quite-a-bargain Mary inherits along with Beth's brownstone.

The second feature, Evangeline Elsewhere by Pat Kinevane was a strong showcase for actress Kimberly Hebert Gregory. The monologue was directed by David Sullivan. Evangeline has suffered a tragedy on a subway car and revisits it continously, taking the audience with her. The piece is strong on emotion, not so on time and place: "What is it with this place?" was a question I was asking when Evangeline wasn't. Ms. Gregory made the most of a potent part. She had convincing prescence and a beautiful singing voice.

The most "Escape from New York" moment in End Of Lines came with the unfortunately entitled Shaving the Pickle by Abbie Spallen, probably the best known of the night's playwrights. Ms. Spallen's Pumpgirl was an Off-Broadway hit last year.

Hers is a New York in a economic, ecological, political nightmare under a totalitarian government. Prescient, right? It is 138 degrees out and everything north of 116th street is a third world nation. Directed by Julia Gibson, the play had echoes of the recent movie "Children of Men" in its themes - fleeing the corrupt urban society for a more beneficent rural one. It also had the requisite Kurt Russell eye patch.

Carla (Dori Legg) is the mother (maybe) of Don (Jerzy Gwiazdowski). A neighbor, Janice (Molly Ward), infiltrates their plan to run away from the chaos of the city and find a better place. The best moments in the one-act were its humorous questions as to the role of the artist in future society. Many inside jokes were tossed around: one was having a screenplay as the ticket off the prison island.

I also enjoyed what I thought was a dig at Diablo Cody. Well, maybe that was another tattooed, stripper screenwriter Ms. Spallen was referring to. This is one pic I could find with Ms. Cody with her clothes on.

Ms. Spallen is currently adapting Pumpgirl

into a screenplay. Judging by her barbs in Shaving

the Pickle, she is just as impressed with the

West Coast as she is with the East.

The Selfish MacDougal Street Giant

And the walls came down
They'd all been warned
But the walls came down
I don't think there are any Russians
And there aint no yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin with tanks
- The Call

The day started out with coffee, not cocktails! This is a piece on children's theatre! Shame. Although a tall vodka and soda with a splash of cranberry as to resemble some kind of pink soda would have been perfect for this particular morning.

At the curtain of the Literally Alive Theatre's musical The Selfish Giant I waited. I waited for the tears that inevitably flow at the end of an Oscar Wilde story. My copious weeping at the 2005  The Happy Prince is the stuff of legends. I sobbed at the death of that noble self-sacrificing swallow and at Wilde's moral that no good deed goes unpunished. The children around me at the New Victory Theatre were more upset with me than the story, and my own children have been hesitant to go back to a theatre since. No tears upon the close of this version of Wilde's story however. Nothing sad happened. The selfish giant put on his cardigan, opened his garden up for the children to play in and everyone lived happily ever after. Not a sniffle. 

Oscar Wilde's children's stories are from the world of Hans Christian Andersen, not Walt Disney. Andersen's little match girl dies. His little mermaid does not get her prince. And the tin soldier and his little dancer? Well, Romeo and Juliet have nothing on them for tragedy. This adaptation of "The Selfish Giant" has taken all the bitterness out of Wilde's bittersweet story and left a sweet tale. Ultimately, a cloying one. Is "The Selfish Giant" without the death of the giant and the religious imagery in his ascent to heaven still "The Selfish Giant?" Like Andersen's Little Match Girl, the Selfish Giant breaks your heart. If it doesn't, it isn't Oscar's.

The world outside is particularly scary right now. Perhaps children's theatre should and will reflect this and have stories without fear or sadness. Children's theatre will then be a source of escapist comfort. But there is an argument that alarming stories are a necessary outlet for a child's apprehension. 

At the end of Wilde's "The Selfish Giant," when the giant is old, no longer selfish and has shared his beautiful garden for the poor children of his village, the young boy who was a particular favorite of the giant reappears in the garden after a long time away. The boy has a stigmata much to the giant's dismay. This integral aspect of the story was avoided by adapter Brenda Bell. Nor was the subsequent death of the giant, in peaceful old age, included. The giant tore down the walls of his garden. He let in the joy of the children but also, in that act, let in other emotions as well. With joy comes sadness. With life comes death.

There is no conclusion to this rendition beyond "learn to share your toys," but I admit this is the old academic in me speaking, not the child. And in the spirit of full disclosure, my 12-year old son completely disagrees with me on this. I asked him to read Wilde's version after we saw the show. He thought the original "way too sad and scary." This from a tween that laughs at orcs and sheds not a tear at the death of Boromir.

"The Selfish Giant" is running through Oct. 26 at The Players Theatre at 115 MacDougal Street. The music composed and directed by Michael Sgouros was delightfully presented in all percussion. Sal Delmonte plays Patrick the giant's servant. Eric Fletcher and Stefanie Smith were lovely dancers and played many roles in the short afternoon. Todd Eric Hawkins was both Oscar and his giant. Mr. Hawkins was apparently channeling Charles Nelson Reilly for the roles. I cannot deny that Oscar may have approved.

For anyone interested, this is the 1972 version of "The Selfish Giant," a short animated subject on the consequences of tearing down walls. It was nominated for an Academy Award.

The End of Lines and the end of the 1st Irish Festival

The evening began with a Guinness at 59 E 59.  When this theatre is your destination,  there is no need to go anywhere else. With the member's discount, beers are $3. Three dollars! In the middle of Manhattan. Guinness! Who shouldn't or wouldn't be a member of 59E59? Perfect for the new austerity budget.

I begin with the end of End of Lines, the 5 one-act theatre project commissioned especially for the 1st Irish Theatre festival.  The five plays were inspired by the New York subway system with varied and The final one-act entitled The Parting Glass by young playwright Ursula Rani Sarma unintentionally demonstrated just how much the world has changed since the festival began. The beginning of September the world is one way. The end of the month the world is another. Sarma's young Master of the Universe (David Nelson) was one character when conceived. On Sept. 27th, he takes on quite a different significance. What exactly is he the master of anymore? Lehman Bros.? Wachovia? A master of WaMu?

The Parting Glass, also starring Ryan King and Raymond James Hill and directed by Portia Krieger, was the most conventional of the 5 plays, figuring the reunion of 3 brothers at the death of their father back in Ireland. The three characters verge on the boundary of cliche. The hard, cruel investment broker. The failed musician. The sensitive brother who yearns to bring the family back together.  However, the issues at hand - those of the acclimation of the first generation are rarely discussed in drama. The Parting Glass was the most optimistic of the plays, holding out the hope that the brothers will repair their broken relationships. Those in the audience who left early, exhausted by the bleakness of the first four plays, might have taken heart at Ms. Sarma's vision of reconciliation, and the brothers' beautiful rendition of the title song.

 

Only one of the evening's plays, Gary Duggan's The Mission had anything to do with the subway. That production, directed by Alyse Rothman, was a funny piece with a twist at the end that also twisted the stomach with anxiety. Brianne Berkson played a young Dominican girl waiting for her subway late in the evening. The performance was quite broad, but she got good laughs with some one-liners that resonated with those who are familiar with the Dominicans' relationship with other Hispanic groups in NYC.  

Two out-of-towners, recently escaped from a prep school somewhere, join her on the platform. 
Their unique mission, one not often the stuff of theatre, is to find a drums and bass club. Hal Fickett (right) and Chris Henry brought the right amount of humor and more to their personas. Their two characters were among the most fully realized of the evening. The developments during the Duggan's playlet are surprising but ultimately not out of character. To be able to establish character so succintly, and on a noisy subway platform, is an accomplishment.

I've noticed that I have become very longwinded lately! Bad blogger. I'll hang this up for now and get back on the other 3 plays.

Bleeding Poets: Poetic Off-Licence

Tis the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on,
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.'
-Fr. Prout

The bell sounds
Funereal song.
Gravely, her grieving peals accompany
A wanderer on his last journey.
- Fredrich Schiller as translated by James Clarence Mangan

Bells, bells, bells —
-E.A. Poe

The evening began with an Amstel at Demarchelier on E. 86th Street. I had to go with a cold beer because it was 86 degrees @ 7 p.m. despite autumn at the end of the week. I sat at the bar with a bunch of depressed looking businessmen: "for every storm, a calm and every thirst, a beer."

And speaking of storms, Bleeding Poets by Daniel Reardon is an imaginative supposition of a perfect storm: the meeting between Irish poet James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849) and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). The place is the Bleeding Horse pub  in 1847, the worst year of the Irish famine and  two years before the two poets' deaths in '49. The moderator of the meeting is Francis Sylvester Mahony, otherwise known as Father Prout. The priest had been a young Jesuit who left the Society of Jesus and became a Diocesan priest but who never left the aura of sch0larship and philosphy that the Jesuits fostered. He arrives at the Bleeding Horse in search of Mangan who favors the pub. He meets Mangan and to his delight, Poe as well.

Mr. Reardon  tackles a huge subject here to uneven success. At times, the play felt overlong, but Mangan as a fascinating subject paradoxically deserves much more time than the play afforded. Mangan's poetry is known here in the US for his popular rendition of "Kathleen Ni Houlihan" and his brilliant "Roisin Dubh" or "My Dark Rosaleen." That he, "the greatest Irish poet before Yeats" is not more well-known is probably best explained in words other than my own!

"For this Mangan was not only an Irishman, - not only an Irish papist, - not only an Irish papist rebel; - but throughout his whole literary life of twenty years, he never deigned to attorn to English criticism, never published a line in any English periodical, or through any English bookseller, never seemed to be aware that there was a British public to please. He was a rebel politically, and a rebel intellectually and spiritually, - a rebel with his whole heart and soul against the whole British spirt of the age. The consequence was sure, and not unexpected. Hardly anybody in England knew the name of such a person...."

This is from Poems by James Clarence Mangan introduced by John Mitchell. The 1859 publication can be found on Google Books. I noticed with pride that the stereotypers are Rennie, Shea and Lindsay. Relation?

Was Poe indeed  influenced by Mangan's translation of Frederich Schiller's "The Lay of the Bell" to write his own "The Bells"? This I do not know, but I do know that Mr. Reardon was influenced by his days at the Jesuit University of New York, Fordham U. Having the overeducated Fr. Prout - once a Jesuit, always a Jesuit - in the house was a wonderful conceit. And knowing that Poe moved to the rural village of Fordham in 1846 and possibly composed "The Bells" near the University Church belltower helps in decoding the alignment of these literary stars. This is a homage to two countries: Ireland and the Bronx.

This ambitious play was staged as a reading at the newly renovated American Irish Historical Society. The Fifth Ave. building is beautiful and an appropriate site for a period piece, albeit a fanciful one. 19th century echoes still sound through the mansion. Colin Lane, Tom Murphy 

and Rod Brogan were Fr. Prout, Mangan, and Poe,
respectively and reputably. The female actors, Laoise Sexton as the bar maid Mary Malone and Rosemary Fine as Mangan's Maud Gonne, Margaret Stacpool were less lucky in their roles. Poor Mary Malone was simply a straight woman for the blazing personalities at her bar. Margaret Stacpool came into the play very late and needed far too much exposition to establish her character and her reason for being on scene. The actresses were excellent but were limited by the playwright.

Bleeding Poets does a great job straddling the US and Ireland's arts culture but pays nothing but lip service to the horrors surrounding the pub. 1847 was Black 47, a year of transition in the history of Ireland. One question I would have liked the 3 poets to discuss was "is literature relevant during a catastrophe" or "can poems feed people." At times, the sheer erudition in the play could be wearying. The translation of Horace's Odes comes to mind.

But overall the reading, as directed by M. Burke Walker, was hugely enjoyable. The poetry slam when the men recited their "bell" poems had great wit. I look forward to Bleeding Poets coming back in full production in 2009.

Speaking of Edgar Allan Poe, The Living Theatre  is in rehearsals for Eureka, a play based upon Poe's essay on the Creation of the Universe. Rehearsals are free and open to the public: 9/18 7-10 p.m., 9/19 7 - 10 p.m., 9/22 7 - 10 p.m., 9/24 - 9/30 7 - 10 p.m.

After the show, I stepped out onto Fifth Ave. and who is darting past me? Marlo Thomas. I gave full chase to see if it really was that girl, but she was too quick for me. She had a real New Yorker's gait.

When I Was God or When I Was Good at Ping Pong

The game, the game!
We've go to think about the game,
The game, the game!
Booze and broads may be great,
though they're great they'll have to wait,
While we think about the game!
- Damn Yankees

Olé Olé Olé Olé
- football chant

"You must always keep your eye on the ball,

even when that ball isn't there at all."

- Da

The evening begins with a Navy Grog. Again from Eletteria. A Navy Grog consists of 12 yr. El Dorado Rum, Goslings and Ozman rum, lime, grapefruit, honey and soda: "Why look so glum when Doctor Rum is waiting to cure you?"

When I Was God is a marvelous reminder of what can be accomplished by two talented actors. Whole worlds, entire lives, complete paradigms can be conveyed. Cork City and its tribal tensions are seen here through a ten year old's eyes. And although this one-act play conveys conventional dramatic terms - the disappointment of the father in the son, the craving of the son for the parent's approval - the terrain that actors Gary Gregg (father) and Michael Mellamphy (the son, mother) cover is unique in its authenticity. It portrays a real Cork.

In Mr. Creedon's play, a young boy is pummeled by both the ash wood of the hurling stick and by his father's expectations for his success on the pitch. All the young boy wants to do is play soccer, but the father thinks that soccer is a sissy game, and if "hurling was good enough

for Cuchulainn, then it's good enough for you." After too many war wounds, the young boy moves onto table tennis. Comically depicted by Mr. Mellamphy, the ping pong sequences are a first for me in the theatre. The father comes around to the idea of table tennis as an alternative to hurling as long as the son brings the same "take no prisoners" attitude. The son finishes his sporting career as a ref in the Football Association of Ireland during the Irish Soccer Cup Final hence the title of the show. 

When I Was God, written with both humor and sentiment by Conal Creedon, characterizes a world familiar to everyone but very rarely seen in the theatre - the all consuming world of sports. Think about it. How many plays are there involving sports? The musical about the Washington Senators. Ok. What else? I'm waiting....97 million watched the last Superbowl. Sports are obviously important to people! Often sports are too important. Sit between a Red Sox fan and a Yankee fan in a crowded bar at 1 a.m. That's dramatic.

One successful play involving sports is Marie Jones' A Night in November, and while we are at it,  Stones in His Pockets also comes to mind as an example of a celebrated two-actor play. Some of the territory in When I Was God has been covered by Jones before. And there are weak moments in the story, the correlations between masturbation and hurling comes to mind immediately. However, the subject matter and the passionate dialogue make Mr. Creedon's play potent and relevant.

Director Tim Ruddy (Rock Doves) sat in front of me. I could see him will the production along, mouthing the words and smiling at the action. There is plenty to smile about in When I Was God. But don't take my word for it. The lovely Geraldine Hughes (Translations, Rocky Balboa) was in the house. She seemed to love every moment. Just the day before, the Belfast Telegraph wrote a very admiring article about Ms. Hughes and her new movie with Clint Eastwood: article here.

When I Was God
September 8,9,14,16,21,22
A Plays Upstairs Production
Manhattan Theatre Source
177 MacDougal St
bet Washington Sq North & 8th St
all shows 7.30 pm $18
reservations 212-868-4444

From Page to Stage

1st Irish 2008 @ NYU's Glucksman House

A good deal of last night's panel discussion on contemporary Irish drama was spent talking about Enda Walsh. This was fortuitous because I have spent a good deal of time lately thinking about Mr. Walsh's plays. Professor John Waters, director of Irish Studies at NYU and member of the panel, stated confidently that we would be seeing and reading Mr. Walsh's plays for many years to come. Good news.



Co- panellist Ciarán O'Reilly, producing director of the Irish Repertory Theatre, credited the Rep's  production  of Walsh's Bedbound, starring Brían O'Byrne as one of the most significant theatre moments for him in the last 20 years that the Rep. has been around. Right is O'Byrne and Jenna Lamia from that 2003 production, directed by Enda himself. 

And as for George Heslin, artistic director of Origin Theater and founder of the 1st Irish, well, Disco Pigs is one of the highlights of this festival that he has worked so hard to bring about. And there wasn't a seat to be had for the evening I attended. Sold out.

Moderated by Belinda McKeon in the beautiful Glucksman House, the three panelists engaged in a passionate discussion on the state and future of Irish contemporary theatre. 

Ciaran spoke of the beginnings of the Irish Repertory with an entertaining explanation that the origin of the theater lies in the fact that he was unable to get an acting job in town - he was too Irish. So to fix that problem of unemployment, he and Charlotte Moore started the IRT. And now he would like to take "full responsibility for the success of the 1st Irish" as he jokingly stated. This got a big laugh from the sold out audience, but there is truth to the statement. Without the IRT, contemporary Irish theatre would not have the relevance in New York to make such a festival possible, let alone successful.

George pointed out that the many achievements of the young Irish playwrights are due to their general confidence in themselves, their work and their futures. I wonder if this is something unique to the generation. The confidence may go hand in hand with the flourishing Irish economy and also with worldwide digital technology and information, and then translates itself into incredible energy. George illustrated his point with an anecdote about one of his playwrights, commissioned to do End of Lines. He marvelled that she squeezed the 1st Irish project in between Hollywood meetings. Opportunities like Hollywood and Fringe Theatre festivals all over the world present themselves more today than in the 60s and 70s when Brian Friel and Tom Murphy were starting out.

As the academic representing, Prof. Waters called for more academic support of contemporary playwrights and described the success of talkbacks, question and answer sessions after a play, as a way of keeping an audience engaged not only in a particular play but in the whole world of theatre. And that is very necessary!

Some highlights:

- Ciarán pointed out the direct connection between John Keane and Martin McDonagh. I had never thought of that, being impatient with some of Keane's work for seeming outdated. Besides The Field and last year's Sive, (an American premiere for a play written in 1959!), I am not all that familiar with Keane's work. I will be sure to give him another look.

- Prof. Waters agreed with the influence of Keane on McDonagh, and called (as an academic would!) for an understanding of what came before in order to better appreciate what is being staged now.

- Mr. Heslin praised the smaller and regional theatre companies who are able to take bigger risks. He singled out the Buffalo Classical Irish Theatre and the Pittsburgh Irish Classical Theatre as examples of two companies doing great work. He also told a great story about his work with Mark O'Rowe. Mr. Heslin was so enthused about the plays he had read by O'Rowe that he went to an ATM and emptied out his account so he could stage Rundown. Great instincts there.

There was much, much more to the evening. And I hope to post more. But I want to end on a "told you so." 

The state of contemporary Irish theatre may be healthy but not so Broadway. I was whining about the lackluster calendar for the fall theatre season a few posts back. Well, as a sign of the Times,  Forbidden Broadway is closing its door after 27 years because there is just no inspiration, even for the world of satire. Gerard Alessandrini on the announcement: “When Broadway becomes too theme-park-like, it makes it difficult, and it just looks like it’s becoming overly commercial the next couple of years.”

Disco Pigs or Panic at the Disco

The boy with the thorn in his side
Behind the hatred there lies
A plundering desire for love
How can they see the Love in our eyes
And still they don't believe us ?
     - The Smiths

"Took Pig ten mins smash all buddels in

dat drink shap. All but one yeah. Pig take da

buddel Barcardi slinky....he kiss da buddel...

an off. 'Pig! Jar pock-full a tens!' He stamp

na Foxy face. Da nose like tomato itgo

squish n' drip drop. Foxy cried, cried like his

mam jus bin smack in da ead by da golf club...which

she war...nex day.

     - Runt

Once more into the breach of Irish drinking culture!  This time, the second production I attended at 1st Irish, we spend a drinking day with a couple of Cork City teenagers, Pig and Runt, neighbors and best friends in search of the perfect rave. It is their shared birthdays, and they have big birthday plans for each other. They have a few pints and break a few heads along the way.

Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs was first staged in Sept. 1996 in Cork and subsequently at the 1996 Dublin Theatre Festival where it won the Best Fringe Production Award. The play featured Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh. Mr. Murphy went on to star in the 2001 movie based upon the play  and Mr. Walsh's screenplay. Elaine Cassidy of  The Others starred as Runt. I was quite happy to see it on 1st Irish's docket because I was a big fan of Mr. Walsh's The Walworth Farce, here last May. Mr. Walsh goes to places of rage with his plays that few of his contemporaries will go.

Disco Pigs is a riot, literally, of words and action. And it has the most creative use of a shopping cart as stage prop that I've ever seen. Words pour out of the two characters,  the child-like Pig otherwise known as Darrin, and

Runt who was lovingly named Sinead at one time by her ma. The words, in a peculiar language unique to the two inseparable friends, pour out in such a torrent that the audience would like to run around after the thrashing actors, picking up a noun here or a verb there, and spend some time over the meanings. No luck. No time outs. The ride toward tragedy continues for this self-defining Bonnie and Clyde.

Disco Pigs, a Solas Nua production, is making its New York premier as part of 1st Irish 2008. Based in Washington DC, Solas Nua is the only US arts organization dedicated exclusively to contemporary Irish Arts. Madeleine Carr and Rex Daugherty bring a frenetic energy to their roles. Exhausting actually. But appropriate. The forceful direction is by Dan Brick and Linda Murray. An ovation goes out to Solas Nua for bringing this wildly creative play to New York and to 1st Irish.

Til next time, I leave you with Cillian's cheekbones:

59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St
bet Madison & Park
all shows 8.30 pm
Saturday/Sunday Mat 3.30pm $18
reservations 212-279-4200

Secret Scripture on Booker Shortlist

A quick note of congrats to Sebastian Barry (beloved for writing The Steward of Christendom) for making the Booker's shortlist. This just from the AP:

“The Secret Scripture,” by Sebastian Barry, published in the U.S. by Viking Adult, tells of an elderly woman in Ireland who shares her shocking family history with her psychiatrist in the days leading up to her death. Mr. Barry, 53, was born in Dublin and has been shortlisted once before."

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

The Ladies at the Gym Poll and The Beginning of the "End of Lines"

School is under way and with the wisdom of Solomon, I have appeased the son who wanted to wear sneakers to school although the uniform policy strictly prohibits it and the daughter whose school only allows sneakers and who wished to wear shoes.


Back to school, back to the gym and back to the ladies who lunge - the most accurate political poll I know of. The women thought the Palin children's names were "weird" and "indulgent." Also a source of consternation - the way Ms. Palin thrust her infant awkwardly toward the cameras - "here. Here's my platform." So the official gym poll shows a McCain-Palin approval rating @ zero percent. Room for improvement to be sure. At least around the leg press.

Tonight starts the 1st Irish 2008 theatre festival. It still astounds me that this has not been done before! This will be a 3 week tour of mostly contemporary Irish plays with an effort to represent both urban and rural, east and west, north and southern Ireland. Tonight starts The End of the Line, Oscar Wilde's The Selfist Giant for the younger set, and Amanda Coogan's Yellow. More here from Cahir O'Doherty.

If anyone going to the festival chances upon this blog, please let me know what you think!

First Day of School and the 1st Irish 2008

After spending the morning preparing 5 children for their first day of school - five different schools - I made myself my second cup of coffee and wondered if the time was right to hit the vice-presidential campaign trail.....nawwh.

I guess I'm just not vice-presidential material despite the children. Maybe it's because I don't have a rifle.

The 1st Irish Theatre festival is only days away! The kick off is on the 6th with a little rum and vodka.




Here is a nice little article in the Times on George Heslin's efforts. Taking my Beckett space blanket out of storage, I will attempt to attend all events and blog accordingly!