Talk about a sharp contrast in programming over at Irish Repertory Theatre!
For the last five months, the company’s mainstage was occupied with its excellent Sean O’Casey season: Full-scale productions of the playwright’s “Dublin Trilogy” of realistic dramas set amid the city’s slums during the Irish revolts of the 1916-1923 period.
Each play involved a dozen or more characters dressed in period clothes, blazing emotions, sometimes violent action, and desolate conclusions. All three were performed in repertory during the last weeks of this season, and altogether that’s quite a heroic endeavor.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★ review here.]
A markedly different work that opened on Thursday, Little Gem is modest in scale but proves to be generous with feelings.
First performed in 2008, Elaine Murphy’s intimate contemporary play offers a relatively low-keyed look at three generations of women from the same working class household in Dublin.
Murphy adeptly constructs her 100-minute drama as a series of interlocking monologues in the manner of plays such as Brian Friel’s The Faith Healer and Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower.
As they begin to tell their stories, Amber (Lauren O’Leary) is in her late teens and enjoying a pretty good time partying hearty with her chums. Her mom, Lorraine (Brenda Meaney), whose ex-husband is long absent as a hopeless junkie, works in a department store and appears to be suffering a midlife crisis that depresses her sufficiently to see a therapist. Kay (Marsha Mason), the matriarch, is coping patiently with her beloved though seriously ailing husband, Gem, and soon confides how she misses a key part of their relationship.
“I know it’s not the done thing talking about your sex life, but Jaysus, I’m the wrong side of sixty, not dead,” says Kay. “I haven’t had sex in well over a year and it’s killing me.” Soon enough Kay is talking about her shopping expedition for a vibrator.
When Amber eventually discovers that she is pregnant by a bloke who almost immediately departs for Australia, Little Gem kicks into higher dramatic gear as her mom and grandmother cope with the situation. Meanwhile, Lorraine meets and starts dating a noticeably hirsute but otherwise nice gent who takes quite a shine to her. Soon enough, more than half a year has passed, and Amber decides to name the infant after her grandfather.
As these conversational and often funny narratives easily flow along, the women’s viewpoints complement each other; especially as how they connect to the men in their lives. Lorraine’s involvement with the new boyfriend as well as the encounters she endures with the deadbeat wretch to whom she once was married illuminate how her state of being improves. The abiding affection Kay expresses for Gem lends a poignant quality to Murphy’s insightful drama.
The text does not specify the surroundings in which these stories are told. A kitchen? A living room? A porch? Marc Atkinson Borrull, the director, and Meredith Ries, the scenic designer, situate the characters within the realism of a humdrum waiting room of a doctor’s office. The location is appropriate: The women visit doctors at various points in their narratives. Michael O’Connor’s lighting design suggests the afternoon, but he variously shades and angles the light to gently accent the monologues.
During the play’s early passages, the actors are isolated from each other within the room. This sense of loneliness imparted by Borrull’s staging underlines how the characters are alienated by their individual worries. As the stories entwine, the women increasingly are observed listening and reacting to each other’s experiences in an affirmative illustration of their familial bonds.
The performances are highly enjoyable. Lauren O’Leary depicts Amber as a spunky soul whose truculent attitude develops into a warmer sensibility. Initially despondent as Lorraine, arms crossed defensively across her chest, Brenda Meaney conveys how the character grows happier and more confident as time progresses. A true artist whose performances always glow with actuality, Marsha Mason portrays Kay with an offhand sense of humor and a forthright nature that anchors the play with her down-to-earth presence.
It’s likely that many of you will be pleased to make the acquaintance of these Irish women in Little Gem, an engaging play that lives up to its title.
