February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
At the same time it’s so brilliantly written, and, in the Irish Arts Center’s ravishing new production, — directed by onetime Broadway name, Nancy Malone — and so well performed, that it would be very nearly impossible not to remain glued to the two-character play, even if the odd reference here and there remains untranslated and unexplained for the benefit of the average American audience unfamiliar with the ins and outs of lower-class Dublin life.
The production’s two stars, Mark Byrne and John O’Callaghan never appear onstage together. Byrne, as a character the printed version of the play refers to as “The Howie Lee,” holds sway for the work’s first half, which is, in effect, a 50-minute monologue.
Then following the intermission, O’Callaghan, identified in text as “The Rookie Lee,” takes over, and, after an approximately equal period of time, brings O’Rowe’s stark work to a shattering close.
The playwright’s particular slice of contemporary Dublin is Tallaght, the hard-pressed working-class district in the southern part of the city. In all probability, much of the language of “Howie the Rookie” would be instantaneously lucid to anyone who’s spent a bit of time there, and has an acute ear for the subtleties of linguistic eccentricity. Others, to be precise, may find themselves adrift at certain moments in O’Rowe’s rich and unique narrative.
The Irish Arts Center’s programme offers a full page glossary which audiences members would be wise to consult before actor Byrne rushes onstage to begin the play’s rambling but riveting storytelling.
The glossary, however, is of only moderate help, with the result that portions of O’Rowe’s play are best taken on faith, much as difficult passages in modern music must be. Anyone applying even moderate tolerance to “Howie the Rookie” will very probably emerge well rewarded.
O’Rowe’s play has been seen in New York on one previous occasion, but only briefly. The actors who initially played the parts being so deftly handled now by Byrne and O’Callaghan, Aidan Kelly and Karl Shiels, respectively, brought the show to P.S. 122 in the East Village for a few weeks three years ago.
Despite excellent response from critics and audiences, that staging was forced to close because of a prior commitment in San Francisco.
The earliest production was a stripped down affair, playing in a black box with only a single red stripe crossing the stage floor from side to side.
Malone’s production is vastly more complicated, and, in some ways, both more inventive and more satisfying.
Michael Carnahan’s scenic design resembles a surreal junkyard dominated by a perilously canted brick chimney poised in front of a broken retaining wall.
To one side of the stage lies a pile of empty window frames, while elsewhere there is a park bench, a stool, a couple of packing crates, and, strangest of all, what appears to be the bony skeleton of what might be a symbolist Ferris wheel.
The sound design provided by Timothy Owen Mazur is split-second timed and enormously helping to the overall effect of the production and to Malone’s vision of the play as well.
It could be argued that the Arts Center production is at least marginally more intensely energized than the original version was, with Byrne and O’Callaghan dashing about the stage, pounding on its walls, and, often, eye-balling members of the audience for direct contact that sometimes verges on outright accusation.
In the end, however, the play’s punch rests in the capable hands of the actors who are delivering it to the audience. In a way, this is especially true of “Howie the Rookie,” considering, perhaps, the obscurantist nature of portions of the writing.
Byrne, slight and tightly wired, bears the letters of his character’s surname, Lee, crudely emblazoned on his right arm. Byrne’s “Howie Lee” tells his part of the story with a fevered intensity that’s a blend of personal grievance and shadowed, angry resentment. Early in the play he takes a stage fall so skillfully done that it makes the audience gasp out of fear for the actor’s physical safety.
When O’Callaghan, lanky, fair-haired, blue-eyed and self-assured, takes over after the intermission, the play, and the production as well, undergoes a slight but marked tonal shift. “Rookie Lee,” O’Callaghan’s character is supremely secure when it comes to his feelings about his sexual attractiveness.
As directed by the able Malone, O’Callaghan takes his time, wooing the audience, and, subtly and successfully, winning them over to his side and taking them into his confidence.
There’s something about O’Callaghan’s almost laconic delivery of O’Rowe’s text that invests the second half of the production with a somewhat increased measure of clarity, which is not to take credit away from Byrne’s skillful handling of his portion of the play.
To be sure, there are more laughs in the second half than in the first, including a story about the fate of a bowl of Siamese fighting fish, at which point “Howie the Rookie” takes on the aspect of a variety of tall tale spinning.
In the play’s first 50 minutes, Byrne, attired in a T-shirt with the image of one of his idols, Bruce Lee, printed on his chest in fighting stance. After all, he explains, somewhat needlessly, he and the late actor share a family name.
Byrne is a coiled spring, and he delivers the text like a small, battery-operated battering ram.
O’Callaghan, on the other hand, strides across the stage like a panther, his fake leather jacket flashing a scarlet lining as he moves. His wit is always evident and the contact he makes with the Arts Center audience is rich and genuine.
Both “Howie Lee” and “Rookie Lee” are experiencing physical discomfort as a result of having been exposed to pesty insects, so much so that the theater programme devotes another entire page to an explanation and amplification of the word “scabies.”
Both actors itch and scratch their way through the production, and the programme generously explains the reasons and then asks thoughtfully “Are you itchy?”
“Howie the Rookie,” or as much of it as you can decipher, is strongly recommended.