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Theater Review 6 brothers and a tale of grace, forgiveness

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Joseph Hurley

SEAMUS FLOOD, written and performed by Billy Devlin. At Raw Space, 529 West 42nd St. Through Sept. 27.

In "Seamus Flood," a 70-minute one-man show written and performed by Billy Devlin, the six sons of the title character tell their stories, one after another, until, as the venture closes, they have woven a credible and compelling tale of an essentially successful, basically happy motherless family held together by mutual love and by the strong moral character of their widower father, a native of County Monaghan who works as a corrections officer on Rikers Island.

Although the elder Flood remains unseen throughout the performance, his influence is everywhere, from Peter, the hard-mouthed NYPD detective who opens the show, to Ally, aka Francis Aloysius, the parish priest who closes it by officiating as Seamus marries Rosemary, his companion of some 15 years, with the other five sons and brothers in varying degrees of what might be called gleeful attendance.

The siblings bookended by Peter and Ally include the upwardly-mobile miserably married Joseph, the club doorman, Tom, the wheelchair-bound Jimmy, and Kevin, the family "problem," seldom employed and always on the verge of potential violence at the hands of loan sharks to whom he owes money or thugs whose ire he had incurred one way or another.

Devlin, Long Island-born and a Los Angeles resident for the last seven years, has worked as a movie stunt man and small part actor, is making his New York stage debut, both as a writer and performer, with the intensely likable "Seamus Flood," which he will be performing Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 8 through Sept. 27, and perhaps longer in Studio L, in the basement of Raw Space at 529 West 42nd St.

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Like Colin Quinn, a friend of the author’s and something of a mentor, the creator of "Seamus Flood" has a genuine gift for observing and recounting the minute details of Irish-American life. However, where Quinn, whose "An Irish Wake" is currently nearing the end of its month-long Broadway run at the Helen Hayes Theater, essentially delivers his yarns without fully inhabiting the individuals who people his evening, and remains for the most part a kind of semi-involved narrator whose characters speak with what comes across as virtually the same voice, Devlin’s half-dozen brothers are fully developed to the point that at times it’s difficult to see any real connection between them, except when the textual details forge ties between them.

The six blood-linked, but otherwise massively divergent Flood brothers are, for the most part, so fully present in "Seamus Flood," and so clearly articulated, each from the other, that it’s difficult to believe how little acting and writing the earnest, square-jawed Billy Devlin has actually done until now.

There are cliches in Devlin’s writing, but they are mainly the cliches and commonplaces of Irish-American life, ranging from drinking and brawling to the role played by the Catholic church. The writer has, to his credit, kept these aspects of his story to a minimum and has handled them, as he has virtually everything else, with honesty and accuracy.

Of the half-dozen Flood apples, the one which appears to have fallen farthest from the family tree is Joseph, who migrated to a Wall Street career, a Manhattan address and an unhappy life with an icy wife named Karen, even as he appears to be having an affair with one of her friends.

Of the Floods, Joseph is both the most deeply alienated sibling, and the one, perhaps, who lingers longest and most disturbingly in memory after Devlin has told his tale. Jimmy, too, his body broken as the result of a motorcycle accident, resonates with particular depth, probably because Devlin shows his acceptance and kindness first, letting his anger and resentment show only gradually and with admirable subtlety.

Devlin, who tested "Seamus Flood" in Los Angeles three nights a week for six weeks last year, is quick to credit the people who have helped him develop his show, including actor George Dzundza, who encouraged him to write it, and comedian Denis Leary, his show’s primary producer.

The director of the current version of "Seamus Flood" is actress and writer Shira Piven.

With an unusual number of Irish-derived, male-oriented solo shows on hand at the moment, with more to come in the next few weeks, Billy Devlin’s "Seamus Flood" stands out by virtue of its grace, its overwhelming sense of forgiveness and its inherently positive nature, as it details and describes the lives of the six sons of a Queens-based paten familias who "only comes across the East River once a year, on St. Patrick’s Day."

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