February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Early in his playwriting career, Enda Walsh displayed a singular gift for bizarre, original speech — so original, in fact, that in “Disco Pigs,” the play that made him famous in l996, he created a language that communicated itself to audiences, even though it made almost no sense on the printed page.
His odd verbal trickery, however, hasn’t always supported him. When the Irish Repertory Theatre produced his two-character play, “Bedbound,” in its 2002-2003 season, prompted walkouts by some audince members, despite the fact that the popular Brian F. O’Byrne was a member of the cast.
Last year, the prolific Walsh was back again, this time at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse with a new play, “The Walworth Farce,” produced by Galway’s celebrated Druid Theater. Now he’s back at the same location, with another Druid production, “The New Electric Ballroom.”
“Ballroom” bears links to “The Walworth Farce,” but was written earlier — the play was first produced in Germany, in 2004. The play had its English language premiere in July, 2008, at the Galway Arts Festival, directed by its author. The play has a four-actor cast, headed by Rosaleen Linehan, one of Ireland’s most beloved review performers, often teaming with Des Keogh.
In Walsh’s play, which takes place, in the present day, in a fishing village on Ireland’s west coast, Linehan plays Breda, the older sibling of Clara, played by Ruth McCabe. Filling out Walsh’s cast are Catherine Walsh as Ada, the women’s much younger sister, and Mikel Murfi as Patsy, a fishmonger who doubles, in the minds of Breda and Clara, as a purple-suited rock singer they’d heard, on a memorable night in the l960s, at the titular dance palace.
Here, as in “The Walworth Farce,” Walsh is concentrating on a severely dysfunctional family, its members once again attempting to recreate pivotal moments some decades past.
The text calls for a couple of female outfits in blindingly bright fuchsia, complete with high-heeled shoes, to be present near a wall of the cottage from the outset/ These ate intended to be worn as Breda and Clara, now in their 60s, relive their memories of a single, painful night at the ballroom.
Walsh’s play tends to stumble on its own cleverness and hard-driving language, but not before Clara, who believes she is disappearing, gets off a few memorable comments.
“The New Electric Ballroom” may not be a major work, but it holds one’s attention, if only for the satisfaction to be derived from watching Walsh work himself out of the corners into which he’s written himself.
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“Oleanna” By David Mamet ? Directed by Doug Hughes ? at the Golden Theater
Director Doug Hughes is having a banner year, with his revival of the 1927 comedy classic, “The Royal Family,” by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, off and running, with his version of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” following close behind. In addition, Hughes is currently involved with a stage adaptation of Carson McCullers’ celebrated novel, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,”
due on Broadway later this season.
“Oleanna,” which was written in 1992, is set in the office of a university professor named John and consists of three visits a student, Carol, makes during the teacher’s office hours, ostensibly in an attempt to convince him to change and improve a grade he’d given her. The play takes its title from the name of a utopian community which flourished briefly in a town called New Norway in Potter County, Pennsylvania.