February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
A monologue does not necessarily a playable play make, but the first three productions in the “1st Irish Theater Festival” come extremely close, despite the fact that all of them present a single performer addressing the audience directly.
Sebastian Barry, the author of the opening show, “The Pride of Parnell Street,” openly admits the admiration he feels for playwright Conor McPherson who, early in his career, made a specialty of the theatrical monologue.
In Barry’s play, a married working class couple, Janet and Joe, take turns telling the author’s story, first the wife and then the husband, delivering alternating chunks of the tale, each one up to bat four times without, until the very last moment, acknowledging the presence of the other.
The show, a production of the Dublin-based Fishamble troupe could hardly be better-done than the version currently running at Theater B of the 59E59th Street complex. Aidan Kelly and Mary Murray, superbly directed by Fishamble’s Artistic Director, Jim Culleton, are giving absolutely sterling renditions of Barry’s difficult, complicated Dubliners.
Janet and Joe are, in fact, such intensely Dublin-bred creatures that the theater program carries an extensive glossary to help American audiences make their way through the play’s rich but sometimes baffling lingo.
Last year, George C. Heslin, founder of the Origin Theatre Company and Artistic Director of the Festival, set five writers loose in New York’s subways and asked them to write a play about the experience. This year, he selected five playwrights, all of them female, and assigned them the task of coming up with monologues inspired by items they’d read in the New York Times.
The results, produced under the title, “Spinning the Times,” are generally positive, with Rosemary Fine outstanding in “Miracle Conway,” by Geraldine Aron, probably the best-known of the writers.
Equally fine are Mark Byrne in Belinda McKeon’s “Fugue,” Jerzy Gwiazdowski in Rosemary Jenkinson’s “The Lemon Tree,” and Ethan Hova in Lucy Caldwell’s “The Luthier.”
The weakest of the five monologues is arguably Rosalind Haslett’s “Gin in a Teacup,” but Aysan Celik makes an honest, if futile, stab at bringing it to valid theatrical life.
M. Burke Walker directed all five “Spinning the Times” playlets in 59E59’s Theater C crisply and energetically.
There can be something utterly magical in hearing a gifted writer perform his work before an audience. That was the case when Wexford author Billy Roche presented “Haberdashery” and “Maggie Angre,” two of the twelve stories in his collection, “Tales From Rainwater Pond,” in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s small W. Scott McLucas Studio.
With his eloquent style and unassuming charm, Roche held the audiences in his spell effortlessly for over an hour, leaving them clearly wanting more.
Elizabeth Whyte, Executive Director of the Wexford Arts Centre, has guided Roche’s lovely performance with grace and taste.
The second edition of “The 1st Irish Festival” is obviously off to a solid start.