And That's A Wrap

Gwen Orel Looks Back At A Great Month Of Irish Theatre Brought To New York City As Part Of The 1st Irish Festival

The third annual 1st Irish Festival wrapped last week, and the awards are in, too. It's really just amazing how successful this all-Irish theatre festival, the only one in the world, has become since it debuted in 2008.

I'm in Ireland as I write this, attending the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival (and reporting on it in two weeks!), and it's been on a lot of people's lips.

George C. Heslin, Director of Origin Theatre Company, conceived and produced the Festival. He's been here in Dublin, too. He's quite a force.

I was on a panel in an all-day long symposium at Glucksman Ireland House on September 25th, on "Tradition and Nostalgia: Contexts and Challenges for a New Generation," and I observed that a large-scale Festival like this, if originating in American theatre, would still be in the planning stages three years out.

My panel was moderated by Professor John Harrington, of Fordham University, who is on the International Committee for the Irish Theatrical Diaspora, and included Gary Duggan, whose brilliant show Trans-Euro Express played as part of the Festival at the Irish Arts Center, as well as Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director

Other panels were "Building Irish Theater in the US;" "The Irish Brand;" and a conversation with Druid's director Garry Hynes, with playwright Belinda McKeon, whose play Graham & Frost ran at P.S. 122 as part of the Festival.

Some of the panelists included Linda Murray, from Washington, D.C.'s Solas Nua, who brought The Prophet of Monto to the Festival; Eugene Downes, from Culture Ireland; Paula McFetrdige, from Belfast's Kabosh Theatre, which brought This Is What We Sang; Paul Meade, from Gúna Nua Theatre Company, which brought Absolution to the Festival; and George Heslin himself.

There was so much going on - 16 plays in 13 venues in four weeks - that only the judges could get to everything. I saw nine of the plays, and went to the Symposium. It was a great Festival - in many ways the best one yet.

Pros

More new plays, more venues involved in New York. More opportunities to meet and mingle so there seemed to be a "Festival" company overall.

Cons

Scheduling made it very difficult indeed at times to see as much as possible, especially with some of the runs being very short. It would be great to have more companies to have productions on Sunday and Monday nights, when most other companies in New York City are dark, and take their Equity day off on another weekday.

Some shows rather neglected by the press would, I think, have garnered reviews citywide if that were the case.

I'm particularly sorry I wasn't able to make my schedule work out to see New York based playwright Belinda McKeown's Graham & Frost, The Prophet of Monto, and Guy Walks Into a Bar, by Don Creedon, produced by Poor Mouth Theatre Company.

A "Big Weekend" has become a must for Theatre Festivals now. Have one central weekend where out of town critics could come in and see seven or eight shows. A lot of people came in for the Symposium, but then could only see one show. More late-night events would also help.

For the first two years of the Festival, Origin commissioned Irish playwrights to write short theme-based pieces for the Festival itself - in 2008, the anthology was called "End of Lines," and the subject was "the New York Subway."

Last year, it was called "Spinning the Times," and the theme was "stories that have appeared in the New York Times."

While the individual pieces sometimes disappointed, it was a good way to gain a sense of a voice - I expected a lot, and was not disappointed, from Gary Duggan, thanks to his excellent piece in End of Lines.

Maybe there's some other way to showcase unknown Irish playwrights, if the commissioning project was too hectic.

Below are capsule reviews of the shows I attended, my top picks in bold and underlined. If you missed it this year, watch this space for news of next year. I'd also venture that you'll be hearing more from some of these companies and writers during the coming months.

Wife to James Whelan Pick!

Teresa Deevy was an Irish playwright who had many plays produced by the Abbey in the '30s before dropping off the radar entirely.

The Mint Theatre, which specializes in bringing life to neglected masterpieces, vividly resuscitated this play - which never had a run at the Abbey - through the direction of Jonathan Bank.

It's a haunting, subtle story of an ambitious man and the woman he loves, whose pride keep them at cross-purposes with one another.

The play has elements of surprise that caused gasps in the theatre, that make perfect sense as well. All of the performances are top notch, but Shawn Fe. I enjoyed this so much I saw it twice, and was tempted to go back a third time - like any classic work of art it gains on repeated viewing.

The Mint is planning to do more of Deevy's work. I can't wait. You shouldn't miss it when they do. I reviewed this play for this paper on August 31st; if you missed it, find it online in the Digital Archives at www.irishexaminerusa.com.

Belfast's Kabosh Theatre brought over this site-specific show about Belfast's Jews, atoning from the grave, on a Yom Kippur. It was performed at New York's Synagogue for the Arts.

This show won the 1st Irish Best Production Award. I was less blown away by it than the judges - the acting was very fine, particularly Ali White as Hannah. But the monologue format of the show kept it from a real sense of momentum.

Playwright Gavin Kostick chose the format to echo the archival material that Kabosh compiled from the remaining Jewish community in Belfast - a choice that is more intelligent than dramatic.

As a Jewish writer myself, I didn't really "buy" some of the things that were glossed over, and felt that at some level the five generations of the family could have been any ethnic group in Belfast.

Nevertheless there was some haunting language and fine performances in it. You can read my review and interview with Kostick for The Forward at www.forward.com/articles/131781/.

The Holy Ground Pick!

Produced by Big Louie Productions, at Manhattan Theatre Source.

This short one-woman play by poet/playwright/novelist Dermot Bolger shows us a widow cleaning out her living room of her husband's scrapbooks and recounting the story of her thwarted marriage.

Director Don Creedon did an excellent job of keeping the piece varied and funny, and Katherine O'Sullivan brought passion and humor into what could be a thankless role of a repressed woman.

Read my review of the play for Back Stage here: www.backstage.com/bso/content_display/advice/e3i4c4ed3de929a1b5d7077f46f69923a88

Three Irish Widows vs. the Rest of the World

Written and performed by Ed Malone, presented by Cheryl King Productions.

Malone worked very hard, inhabiting all of the characters in his play, including the title characters who travel to Spain and then New York before heading home.

He's switched venues a few times, and that may explain why when I saw it he was shouting and acting as though he were in a large space.

Malone has studied with LeCoq, and uses deliberate mime, but at times this made the action seem to crawl, and I personally could have lived without the miming of sex with an invisible person.

There is some good material here, but Malone badly needed a director.

Absolution

Produced by Dublin's Gúna Nua Theatre. Written and performed by Owen O'Neill, who won the Best Actor Award. Director Rachel O'Riordan won Best Actor.

This show deserved the praise it garnered from the New York Times and others.

O'Neill plays a serial killer who targets pedophile priests. He tells the audience the stories of gruesome murders (there is even a beheading) from a narrow cell, as he dresses and practices some karate moves.

Wiry and intense, red-headed O'Neill elicits both revulsion and compassion, no small feat. O'Neill is best known as a comic - but this piece had only a few black laughs here and there. It also had a neat twist that makes sense in retrospect .

The play relies a little too much on shock value and graphic description (one of a priest raping a little girl is very hard to take). Ultimately it's a dark horror story rather than a seriously haunting tale, but on that level, it worked well indeed. Here's hoping O'Neill returns with his next one.

Trans-Euro Express Pick!

By Gary Duggan, presented by Irish Arts Center's New Plays Partnership, in association with Fundamental Theater Project.

Duggan's play about an about-to-break-internationally singer and his middle-manager-once-filmmaker friend training through Europe to make a music video was funny, thoughtful and entertaining.

Film has been overused as a scenic device in New York theatre, but here it makes perfect sense.

The original music by Roderick Hill, who stars as the singer Gram, added greatly as well - and is new for this production.

The show was making its US premiere. Its only flaw, in my opinion, was that it would have been helped by an intermission - it's a dense play, with smart writing that shows the soft underbelly of the male psyche.

Most "buddy films" (or plays) touch on this only lightly - Duggan holds nothing back.

Patricia Buckley, as the "sexy minx" who stars in the music video wearing thick black glasses, did a fine job showing both funny and slightly crazy at once - and the growing romance between her and Gram is tender and touching.

This play deserves a longer run here. Although its setting in "Celtic Tiger" Ireland has passed, it has a lot to offer about relationship and ambition to people from any country.

Exit/Entrance

By Aidan Matthews, produced by Origin Theatre Company, at 59E59. Actress Linda Thorson was nominated for Best Actress.

The play shows us an elderly couple preparing to make an "exit," clearly assisted suicide. In Act Two, we see either the same couple when young or eerily another couple just like them. I suspect that some ham-fisted acting, and very on-the-nose directing from M. Burke Walker, didn't help this piece move along.

While clearly some people in the audience the night I attended were moved, I found it painfully slow, precious and predictable.

The poetry in it was aiming for Beckett and Ionesco but settled for Liam Gallagher of Oasis. Disappointing.

Rat in the Skull Pick!

By Ron Hutchinson. Produced by Wallfly Theatre Company, at The Drilling Company.

Hutchinson's 1984 drama about an RUC man grilling an IRA man in London was given an outstanding production here.

The play lets us know early on that the IRA man has been beaten in custody, so throughout the play we're waiting to find out what happened, flashing back to the moment when the RUC man and his prisoner are, against regulation, left alone together.

All of the four performances were many-layered as well as solid, and director Roderick Hill (clearly a busy man this Festival) kept the action, which could become ponderous, swift.

Colin Stewart's IRA bomber was full of smart, scornful anger. He himself was like a ticking time bomb. But as Nelson, Tom O'Leary nailed the role. He plays one of those cynical policemen who speak and think fast, a mile a minute, simultaneously goading both his opponent and jeering at their situation - and himself.

Nominated for the Best Actor, for my money, O'Leary should have received it.

What he had to do was more difficult in many ways that O'Neill's piece - and I find myself flashing back to it more often.

Hutchinson's play suggests that the real rift between Ulster and the Republic is a family matter. When Nelson says "we have a date" when the English leave it's still chilling - though one hopes, no longer predictive.

Hue and Cry

By Deirdre Kinahan. Produced by Navan's Tall Tales Theatre Company, at Irish Repertory Theatre.

A fine, subtle one-act about two cousins reuniting for a funeral. It's the funeral of TK's father, and he himself is not welcome at the house.

Some of the relationships are never really clarified - nor precisely why he's not welcome in his stepmother's home - and that feels exactly right. Both Will O'Connell and Paul Roe turned in layered, strong performances. I'm eager to see more of her work.

Full List Of Nominees