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.

Bunbury Players

Bunbury Players in Clifton Park (outside of Albany) are set to present a workshop of one of my plays this weekend.

Due to some recent events, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get up there to see it myself, which is massively disappointing, but if you're in the area, please come.

The play, After an Earlier Incident, is being presented with three other short works at the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library at 475 Moe Rd. Performances will be at 7pm on March 28th and 29th, and at 2pm on March 30th.

The Jew of Malta

I hadn't planned on seeing Red Bull Theater's reading of The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, but when my friend Susan told me she had an extra ticket, how could I resist?

Matthew Rauch starred as Barabas, the titular character who might have influenced not just William Shakespeare's Shylock, but also a slew of villains from Aaron the Moor to Richard III to Iago.

Like Shylock, Barabas is a victim of unfair treatment, but his quest for revenge goes outside the bounds of what can be considered reasonable. At the beginning of the play he is stripped of all his possessions by Ferneze, the Governor of Malta. Ferneze was played in the reading by Derek Smith, who gave a memorable performance as Lodovico in Red Bull's previous production of the John Webster tragedy The White Devil.

While Barabas and Ferenze give unflattering depictions of leaders of the Jewish and Christian worlds, the Islamic world is represented by Selim-Calymath, the son of the Ottoman Emperor. While Marlowe doesn't make any of these leaders come off very well, I found Calymath to be the least odious, at least as portrayed by Jason Bowen, who was excellent a couple of years ago in Lynn Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy.

By far, however, the most sympathetic character is Barabas's daughter Abigail, played by Priyanka Kedia. Her father first forces her to become a nun so that she can retrieve a treasure hidden in a convent, then makes her the center of a love triangle that kills two young men, including Ferneze's son Don Lodowick, played by Samuel Adams. Distraught, Abigail converts to Christianity so she can enter a convent for real, earning the scorn of her father.

Barabas's partner in crime (who later foolishly betrays him) is a slave from Thrace named Ithamore. Steven Boyer, who is perhaps best known for playing an emotionally disturbed teenager with a penchant for puppetry in the Robert Askins play Hand to God, was delightfully evil in the reading as Ithamore.

The play, which had its first recorded performance in 1592, is famous for its use of a cauldron in which the protagonist is boiled alive. Philip Henslowe's prop list for the Lord Admiral's Men listed a cauldron that was likely used in the play's premiere and subsequent revivals.

Red Bull is not slated to revive the play in a full production anytime soon, but they will be presenting a new adaptation of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid beginning this May. It's on my list of things to see!

Wine in the Wilderness

I first encountered Alice Childress's play Wine in the Wilderness in a student production at City College. Since then. I've taught the play in a variety of theatre history courses.

When Classic Stage Company announced they would be doing an Off-Broadway production of the piece directed by LaChanze, who had recently starred in Childress's Trouble in Mind on Broadway, I knew I'd have to see it.

For one reason or another, that production kept getting delayed, but it is now playing at CSC on 13th Street, and you should definitely check it out. Beautifully directed and compellingly acted, the play continues to speak to audiences today just as when it first aired in 1969.

Yes, aired: the drama was first staged for television as part of a series of plays presented by the Public television station WGBH in Boston. Since then, however, it's become a bit of a classic on regular stages. The Lynn F. Angelson Theater where it's playing now is far from a traditional TV studio, instead wrapping the audience around three sides of its elongated playing area. The set, designed by Arnulfo Maldonado, works like a charm, though.

The action of the play takes place in the apartment of Bill Jameson, a divorced artist living in Harlem  where the year is 1964 and a riot is going on outside in the streets. Jameson is more concerned with his paintings, though, and gets excited when his friends call him to say they've found the perfect model for a piece he's been trying to finish. He's played by Grantham Coleman, who came to audiences' attention in 2019 in Much Ado About Nothing and made his Broadway debut later that year in The Great Society.

I enjoyed Coleman's performance, but the real star of the show is Tommy Marie, played by Olivia Washington in this production. Appearing in a mismatched outfit and a bad wig, Tommy is a source of amusement for the other characters at the beginning, but by the end of the play they (and the audience) begin to see her differently.

Other strong performances are delivered by Brooks Brantley, Lakisha May, and Milton Craig Nealy. The show is only playing through April 13th, so see it while you still can.

Shavian Shenanigans

I loved last year's production of The Devil's Disciple by Gingold Theatrical Group, and a short review I wrote of the show recently appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of The Shavian.

The same issue also contains a review of Mrs. Warren's Profession, which I saw last summer at Shaw's Corner, Bernard Shaw's former home at Ayot St. Lawrence. The production, directed by Jonas Cemm, was later staged at the Theatre at the Tabard, which apparently had better acoustics even if it was not quite as picturesque.

Other interesting articles in the issue include Alexandra Glavanakova's report on the controversial Bulgarian National Theatre production of Arms and the Man that was met with fierce protests by Nationalists, and Soudabeh Ananisrab's discussion of the British Regional Repertory Movement, a piece that provided new evidence from the archives at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.

The most substantial article in the issue, however, is Michel Pharand's "Mrs Warren Goes to France: The Politics of Translation." Pharand traces the story of the first French translations of some of Shaw's plays by Augustin and Henriette Hamon. Though the Hamons were not sticklers for accuracy, they were responsible for introducing the French to both The Devil's Disciple and Mrs. Warren's Profession, as well as such plays as The Philanderer, You Never Can Tell, and Candida.

If you want to get your own copy of The Shavian in the future, be sure to join the Shaw Society, which is based in Britain but quite welcoming to international members.

Moby-Dick, the Opera

As an opera fan who wrote his own stage adaptation of Moby-Dick, I definitely had to see the Met's premiere of Jake Heggie's musicalized version of the novel.

The libretto by Gene Scheer makes some interesting choices, including having Queequeg open the show. The novel's narrator (who asks us to call him Ishmael) is considerably downplayed, and is referred to as "Greenhorn" rather than by a name.

When I wrote my adaptation, I cut the character of Pip. It's a long book, and something had to go, so as a practical matter, getting rid of the cabin boy meant I didn't have to worry about cringe-worthy moments where adults badly try to perform as children.

The opera uses another solution, that employed by Orson Wells in his stage adaptation Moby-Dick Rehearsed, which is to have an adult female perform Pip's role. Soprano Janai Brugger sings the role of Pip with a voice that soars above the voices of all the men on the ship.

Scheer's libretto focuses, however, on Captain Ahab, portrayed by tenor Brandon Jovanovich. His challenge to the forces of the universe rings out (fittingly) with an operatic intensity. The climactic confrontation between him and the whale is staged assuming that we all know the story, but is powerful, nonetheless.

In many ways, however, the star of the show is not Jovanovich but the design. Never have I seen set and digital projections work together so well as in this production. Performers literally climb the walls, and the projections turn the environment into boats, masts, ocean waves, or whatever else is needed.

The opera is playing this month only, closing on March 29th, so get your tickets while you can! This is a ship you won't want to miss.

The Tryal

During the 18th century, British plays sometimes revolved around a plot in which a woman pretended to be lesser than she is to determine if a potential matrimonial partner truly loves her.

Oliver Goldsmith set the standard with his comedy She Stoops to Conquer, which premiered at Covent Garden in 1773. Hannah Cowley developed the idea further in her play The Belle's Stratagem.

While I've seen both of those plays on stage, I've never seen a live production of Joanna Baillie's The Tryal. That play, first published in 1798, shows an heiress named Agnes Witherington pretending to be penniless during a visit to Bath so that she can avoid fortune hunters.

The play recently had a staged reading at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds which fortunately was recorded and can now be viewed online. Helen Dallas plays Agnes and Ed Whatley-Smith plays Mr. Harwood, who falls in love with her while other suitors bestow their affections on Agnes's poor cousin Mariane, played by Ailun Zhou. Added comedy is provided by the loquacious Miss Eston, played by Lesley Peterson.

Robert Price is quite sympathetic as Agnes's uncle Mr. Witherington, who suggests that Harwood's love for Agnes might be perverse. If he can remain affectionate even for a woman who is truly vile, Agnes will never be able to be happy with him. To ensure this is not the case, Agnes resolves upon a second trial. She will allow Harwood to read a letter that implies she has a dark secret. If he still loves her after that, she will refuse to marry him, but resolves never to be married at all if that is the case.

What is the secret? While it's not explicit in the text, Baillie implies the black mark is that Agnes has lost her virginity. The conservative Baillie appears to be engaging in a bit of 18th-century slut shaming. In the recent production, the author was brought on stage, in the person of Sarah Burdett who commented on the action and mimed writing.

Price, Burdett, and Peterson adapted the script, which was directed by Robert Price and produced by Chris Bundock. If you want to check it out, you can view it here.