Irishtown

Last night I saw Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's play Irishtown at Irish Repertory Theatre. As you might guess, the play was trying to be a little... well... Irish.

But what does it mean to be an Irish play? If a play is Irish, is it not taken for granted that the play is depressing, deals with the legacy of colonialism, involves alcoholism, and ends unhappily?

It is precisely these types of stereotypes that Smyth's play seeks to interrogate. Like Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind, it does so by presenting a backstage look at the rehearsals of an "important" Broadway-bound new play. As with Trouble in Mind, we don't see much of the play they are rehearsing, but from what we do see, it looks pretty dreadful.

Place to the side for a moment the fact that no play in 2025 is going to be rehearsed by a small, Dublin-based theatre company with plans to immediately transfer it to Broadway based on nothing other than the strength of a single other work by the playwright. The purpose here is not believability, but rather to use as many cliches as possible to keep the audience laughing.

Brenda Meaney plays Aisling, the Irish dramatist whose new play is curiously set in England with no explicitly Irish characters. The work is to star Siofra, played by Saoirse-Monica Jones of Derry Girls fame. Siofra has won the Dublin theatre's "Best Newcomer" award twice--ten years apart. Yes, this is a depiction of the drama world that is all-too-familiar, as is the fact that Aisling has to claim the play is autobiographical, since otherwise she will be denied the chance to depict a situation in which she has no lived experience.

Or does she? The play involves sexual harassment and assault, and soon the play's English director Poppy, played by Angela Reed, is crossing lines right and left, particularly regarding Siofra, who probably slept with Aisling just to get the part. The two other cast members, Constance and Quin (played by Kate Burton and Kevin Oliver Lynch), stay out of this sexualized mess, but certainly aren't above gossiping about it.

When Aisling decides to pull the rights to her show, the cast tries to devise an Irish play, leading to spoofs of Samuel Beckett, Sean O'Casey, John Millington Synge, and pretty much the entire Irish dramatic canon.

If you're interested in seeing the show, it's playing now until May 25.

Irish Poetic Drama

Prior to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, Ireland did not have a recognized independent state, but even before the country was recognized as a nation, activists strove to create a national Irish theatre.

In 1897 a trio of artists, Isabella Augusta Gregory, William Butler Yeats, and Edward Martyn, published a manifesto calling for an Irish literary theatre that could present high-quality drama on Irish themes. The three teamed up with the writer George Moore to officially establish the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899, renting concert rooms to put on Yeats's controversial verse drama The Countess Cathleen.

From the beginning, the Irish Literary Theatre was involved in controversy. A critic circulated a pamphlet condemning The Countess Cathleen, and the highest-ranking catholic prelate in Ireland wrote to newspapers attacking the play. Many Irish nationalists supported the piece, however, and so many supporters and detractors showed up on opening night that the police were called in as well, just in case there was trouble.

The Irish Literary Theatre produced a play co-written by Yeats and Moore, Diarmuid and Grania, and later regrouped under the name of W.G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company. This theatre presented Cathleen Ni Houlihan, another controversial play by Yeats in which he credited Gregory as a collaborator. Though at first glance the play appears to be naturalistic, its title character personifies Ireland itself, first as an old, worn-out woman, and then as a young girl who walks like a queen.

The following year, the company reformed again with funding from the theatre manager Annie Horniman, establishing what came to be known as the Abbey Theatre. In addition to reviving Cathleen Ni Houlihan, the Abbey premiered another Yeats play, On Baile's Strand, along with a play by Gregory, Spreading the News, and a new play called In the Shadow of the Glen by a previously unknown writer named John Millington Synge.

Synge's plays became an important if controversial part of the Abbey's repertoire. His one-act drama Riders to the Sea depicted the lives of poor fishing families in the west of Ireland, and his full-length comedy The Playboy of the Western World offended so many people that the audience rioted when the Abbey premiered it in 1907. Tragically, Synge died two years later, his life cut short at the age of 37.

After Ireland gained independence, the nation fell into a civil war between rival factions. The new nation's turbulent history was recorded in the plays of Sean O'Casey, whose trilogy of plays set in Dublin, The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars, recount political events with both humor and pathos.

These plays retain much of the poetic lyricism of Gregory, Yeats, and Synge. Yeats continued to write verse drama, and finished his last plays, The Herne's Egg, Purgatory, and The Death of Cuchulain, shortly before he died in 1939.

The Smuggler

This afternoon, I saw a matinee of The Smuggler, a one-man verse drama by Ronán Noone which the author has dubbed "a thriller in rhyme" and is currently playing at Irish Repertory Theatre.

Noone does not perform the piece. Instead, his wily protagonist Tim Finnegan is played by Michael Mellamphy, who has previously appeared in a number of Irish Rep productions, including Sean O'Casey's The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock.

Finnegan is a hapless and mostly harmless denizen of Cape Cod who after encountering criminals smuggling undocumented immigrants starts down a dark journey that resembles that of Walter White in the first season of Breaking Bad... presuming that the the first season of Breaking Bad had been written in rhyme.

Noone's verse is clever (particularly when coming up with some of the naughtier rhymes). That, combined with the play's mild production demands and timely subject matter, has helped to get the piece performed at numerous theatres lately, including Urbanite in Sarasota, Florida. However, the play is steeped in the locality of Cape Cod, and Ann Beyersdorfer's set successfully captures a sense of place.

Audience members find themselves sitting in a variety of wooden chairs they might encounter in a typical New England Pub, and a few lucky playgoers even get to sit at pub tables onstage and be served drinks by Mellamphy.

Conor Bagley ably directs this entertaining production, which officially opens tomorrow. Some performances are already sold out, so get your tickets now.

Top Plays of 2019

I've come up with this year's list of the top plays I saw that opened in New York in 2019.

Of course some plays didn't qualify, like What the Constitution Means to Me, which opened last year Off-Broadway, or Timon of Athens, which I actually saw in England.

Last year, Travesties and Twelfth Night topped the list, and this year included pieces produced by Roundabout and The Public Theater as well. Here's this year's top ten, in reverse order:

10. Antony and Cleopatra - Hudson Warehouse provides a mixed bag of free classical theater in Riverside Park, but this year's modernized production of one of the great tragic love stories of all time was definitely worth seeing.

9. The Importance of Being Earnest - Another great free outdoor production this year was New York Classical Theatre's clever take on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. This year they performed the play in both traditional and gender-swapped versions.

8. Midsummer: A Banquet - Food for Love Productions turned Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream into a tasty treat with this immersive production directed and choreographed by Zach Morris. The Art Nouveau aesthetic worked brilliantly, but it was the remarkable acting that sold the show.

7. Cyrano - Yes, this musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac by the New Group was all over the place, but it still managed to make me cry... a lot. If they end up releasing a cast album, definitely buy it. And yes, Peter Dinklage can sing. (We already knew Jasmine Cephas Jones and Grace McLean could.)

6. King Lear - Glenda Jackson gave a performance of a lifetime in this Broadway production of Shakespeare's bleakest tragedy. Sam Gold's direction was problematic at times, but a supporting cast including Jayne Houdyshell and Ruth Wilson made up for it, and the production was thoroughly enjoyable, if rather long.

5. Caesar and Cleopatra - Gingold Theatrical Group scored a hit again this year with their Off-Broadway revival of an epic historical comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Director David Staller's imaginative staging featured seven amazing actors and one hysterical puppet. I'm looking forward to seeing what GTG does next year!

4. Hillary and Clinton - Lucas Hnath's play about the 2008 presidential primary had already been making the rounds before landing on Broadway this year. His writing is always clever, but Broadway audiences had the added benefit of seeing Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow in the title roles.  The play succeeded by eschewing historical accuracy in favor of a more metaphorical truth.

3. Much Ado About Nothing - The stand-out Shakespeare production of the year was undoubtedly The Public Theater's production of Much Ado About Nothing in Central Park. Director Kenny Leon assembled an incredible cast, and fortunately their performance was recorded and aired on PBS to be shared with the entire nation. If you missed it in the park, make sure you see the recorded version.

2. Scotland, PA - A lot of people have been crowing about Hadestown, which I saw both Off-Broadway and in London, though I have not yet seen in its new Broadway incarnation. The best new musical that I saw this year was Adam Gwon's Scotland, PA, a brilliant adaptation of the 2001 film, which was itself based on a certain Scottish Play. Alas, Roundabout has closed this production, but it deserves to have a longer life elsewhere.

1. Juno and the Paycock - Though I'm not a huge fan of Sean O'Casey, this spring Irish Repertory Theatre presented his three Dublin plays in rep, which is an opportunity not to be missed. Of the three, Juno and the Paycock is O'Casey's best play, and this production was masterfully directed by Neil Pepe to navigate the layers of comedy and tragedy for maximum effect. Irish Rep has a great line-up of shows for the coming year, including Dion Boucicault's classic farce London Assurance, which is running now.

I'm looking forward to that and lots of other great shows in 2020!

Grateful

On this day of giving thanks, I am grateful for some of the wonderful theatre companies in New York City that keep going in spite of the difficulties of this day and age.

I am grateful for Gingold Theatrical Group, which has managed not only to keep its Project Shaw reading series going in lean times, but to continue to produce excellent fully staged work as well. This fall's production of Caesar and Cleopatra brought an epic to life on a shoe-string budget. We need more work like that: dedicated, daring, and filled with enthusiasm.

Though I didn't get out there as much as I would have liked to this year, I'm grateful that Irish Repertory Theatre is still with us, too. Their production of Sean O'Casey's trilogy of Dublin plays was not to be missed, and I particularly loved Juno and the Paycock. They'll soon be opening one of my favorite under-produced plays, London Assurance by Dion Boucicault. Thank you yet again, Irish Rep!

Theatre in the parks is always hit-or-miss, which is why I'm particularly grateful to New York Classical Theatre for consistently providing quality outdoor theatre for the masses. This summer's production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was a delight. I hope what they have to offer us next summer will likewise entertain and provide food for thought.

Finally, I'm grateful to Urban Stages for bringing new work to life and being one of the few New York theatres left to take unsolicited scripts. It's a pity we don't have more theatres in this city with the type of open-door policy that has helped Urban Stages discover truly new voices.

Some of the larger theatre institutions in New York frequently get applause for their good work, but it's smaller companies like these that really keep New York theatre alive and vibrant!

Juno and the Paycock

Last night, I saw Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at Irish Repertory Theatre. It's part of a trio of O'Casey plays the company is putting on through May. Right now, just Juno is running, but all three will be playing in rep May 11-25.

I'd already seen Irish Rep's production of The Shadow of a Gunman, which stars Meg Hennessy and James Russell in a story about the Irish War of Independence. Both Hennessy and Russell do excellent jobs in a play that starts out as a witty comedy and turns devastatingly tragic.

Juno and the Paycock similarly has tonal shifts, but rather than simply beginning as a comedy and turning into a tragedy, it deftly weaves together different dramatic strands into a tapestry that can be stunning in its beauty. The Shadow of a Gunman was O'Casey's first play to be professionally produced, so it's only natural that he should have learned a thing or two for his second big play.

Instead of experiencing a sophomore slump, O'Casey had a hit with Juno and the Paycock, which like The Shadow of a Gunman opened at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The Abbey had been involved with a number of controversial plays, including William Butler Yeats' Cathleen Ni Houlihan, John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, and George Bernard Shaw's The Showing-Up of Blanco Posnet. What they didn't have was financial success.

All that changed when they discovered O'Casey. The Abbey had rejected O'Casey's play The Frost in the Flower but encouraged him to keep writing. When he sent them The Shadow of a Gunman, they knew they had something special. The play's success was exceeded, however, by Juno and the Paycock. That play opened in 1924, a year after a ceasefire had ended the Irish Civil War that had followed the nation's independence. O'Casey dealt explicitly with the Civil War in his play, but allowed audiences to sympathize with all those who had died, which was perhaps a key to its popularity.

Militants who rejected the peace with Britain, who wanted to keep fighting until Ireland was out of the Commonwealth and the counties in Northern Ireland joined the Republic, were known as Diehards. They continued to wage war against the new national government just as they had against the British. Meanwhile, those who sided with the newly independent Irish Free State were known as Staters, and both sides were subject to assassination. In O'Casey's play, Juno Boyle fails to sympathize with a neighbor when her son is killed for being a Diehard, but then her own son is taken by the Diehards for being a Stater.

"Ah, why didn't I remember that then he wasn't a Diehard or a Stater, but only a poor dead son!" she says toward the end of the play. "Sacred Heart o' Jesus, take away our hearts o' stone, and give us hearts o' flesh! Take away this murdherin' hate, an' give us Thine own eternal love!" That must have resonated after the close of the Irish Civil War, just as it resonates today in the shadow of so much war and death.

Maryann Plunkett does an exceptional job as Juno in what is her Irish Rep debut (though she has a long list of Broadway and off-Broadway credits). Director Neil Pepe, best known for being the Artistic Director of the Atlantic Theater Company, helms the production, and Irish Rep regular Ciarán O'Reilly plays Captain Jack Boyle, who struts around like a "paycock" in the play.

Special kudos go to scenic designer Charlie Corcoran, who has managed to turn the interior of the theatre at Irish Rep into a set of early-20th-century tenements that can be used for all three O'Casey plays the company is doing. The third play, The Plough and the Stars, will begin performances April 20th.

To find out more about the shows, check out Irish Rep's website.