Charlotte Moore, the Irish Repertory Theatre’s artistic director, and Ciaran O’Reilly, the company’s producing director, devoted this year to the supernal Sean O’Casey trilogy, The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and, now opening, The Plough and the Stars. So endless thanks are due them for what is nothing less than a high point—make that a very high point—of the just ending theater season.
This third production—directed by Moore with enormous vigor and unflinching honesty (I’m tempted to call it her best work in a long list of outstanding work)—is a must-see. It certainly is as played by a flawless troupe within Charlie Corcoran’s four cleverly shifting sets. (To get patrons into the mood for the O’Casey homage, Corcoran uses a good portion of the auditorium to hint at Dublin’s crumbling tenement neighborhood.)
With The Plough and the Stars (the title a reference to the Irish Citizen Army flag), O’Casey’s ability to fuse comedy and tragedy into the same moment becomes indisputable. It’s a talent (a genius?) apparent in the previous productions as well. Call his plays tragicomedies or comic tragedies, according to your inclination. Whichever, the marvelous knack is displayed repeatedly, often within a single speech where O’Casey places a character in a tragic situation while simultaneously wringing a laugh from the incipient tears.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★★ review here.]
In some aspect, what O’Casey presents in The Plough and the Stars are four one-acts (here including only a single intermission) that are bonded by the same figures. They begin in the home of Nora Clitheroe (Clare O’Malley) and husband Jack (Adam Petherbridge.) Jack is a member of the ICA (a predecessor of the IRA), who’s pressed into action at the act’s end, much to Nora’s clinging dismay.
Also participating in the extremely lively parlor goings-on are aging Peter Flynn (Robert Langdon Lloyd), preparing to dress in military garb for later festivities (he eventually wields a sword with amusing menace), and The Young Covey (James Russell), who habitually gets his jollies baiting the easily outraged Flynn.
Along with others passing through are Bessie Burgess (Maryann Plunkett), a downstairs neighbor gadfly, and Fluther Good (Michael Mellamphy), first spotted fixing the Clitheroes’ squeaky front door, which serves as helpful as any handy object to symbolize the problems leading up to the 1916 uprising. (The early scenes here take place in 1915, when World War I is getting underway.)
Act two takes place in a nearby pub where prostitute Rosie Redmond (Sarah Street) presides over the proceedings, while the bartender (Harry Smith) regularly breaks up fights between and among most of the above-named rebel-rousers. Seen through the bar’s frosted upstage window, which supposedly faces the street, are people at a loud rally attesting to the gathering political unrest.
Acts three and four depict the increasing battle conflicts, now more familiarly known as the Easter Rising—act three on the street under Bessie Burgess’s window, act four in Bessie’s apartment, where Hovey, Flynn, Good and fugitive Captain Brennan (John Keating) have been sheltering for three days and also where rests the last of the previously introduced and terminally ill Mollser (Meg Hennessy).
Perhaps due to O’Casey’s blending the comic with the tragic and surely due also to his writing this trilogy so soon after the disastrous events occurred (retrospectively, 1923, 1924 and 1926—the order in which the Irish Rep has revived them), the characters throb with life. And with death: Not one, not two, but three deaths are carried out in front of the audience, and one off-stage. To underline the life cycle, Nora’s infant makes a barely whimpering and well-swaddled outing.
Brought to even more vibrancy by the Linda Fisher and David Toser costumes (a birthday hat Nora receives is a sight to see), Michael Gottlieb’s lighting, the Ryan Rumery and M. Florian Staab sound and Rumery’s original music (traditional Irish tunes also part of the mix), The Plough and the Stars is greatly distinguished furthermore by the players.
It needs to be reported that several of them ought to be considered daunting members of the Irish Rep/Sean O’Casey ensemble for their having performed in two or more of the season’s entries. There’s no first among equals, but Plunkett deserves a vociferous nod for switching from her long-suffering Juno in Juno and the Paycock to Bessie Burgess’ outbursts. Not too long ago, Plunkett outdid herself preparing meals while conversing understatedly in Richard Nelson’s exquisite Apple Family and Gabriel Family plays. The Plunkett voice exposed here is remarkable, as are her death throes.
Determined nods also go out to Mellamphy, Russell, Keating, Petherbridge, Hennessy, Ed Malone, Úna Clancy, Terry Donnelly and Lloyd, whose lovable codger is terrific. Smart of Moore and O’Reilly to call on these actors’ services so often.
Through the centuries many of the most outstanding playwrights achieve their vaunted status as a function of the living, breathing characters they create. None do so more than O’Casey with his under-fire Dublin denizens living in the charged moment and breathing urgently and deeply under frightening duress.
The Plough and the Stars opened April 30, 2019, at the Irish Repertory Theatre and runs through June 22. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
