Tom Grealish (Jesse Pennington) brings new bride Bairbre (Brenda Meaney) to the far-flung West Ireland farm (set designer Vick R. Davis’s exterior and interior is smack-on) where his stern father Martin (Con Horgan) lords it over all. The couple expect to settle there, Bairbre even more committed to the plan than Tom. She’s hoping to put an initially vague past behind her.
Once Martin gets a good look at Bairbre, however, he has other ideas in Micheál mac Liammóir’s tough-minded The Mountains Look Different. The drama was composed, as a Mint Theater Company program note informs, when the playwright mused over what might have transpired had Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie of Anna Christie ever ditched her previous ways in order to stay on the straight and narrow. The play might even be viewed as a possible O’Neill sequel.
Mac Liammóir (1899-1978), perhaps somewhat forgotten now (he shouldn’t be), might have claimed his greatest achievement founding Dublin’s Gate Theatre (with partner Hilton Edwards). On the other hand, he might have considered his 10 plays and internationally celebrated acting career just as notable. (FYI: He appeared on Broadway five times.)
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★ review here.]
In The Mountains Look Different, Martin, an inflexible heavy, at first objects to Bairbre’s presence out of seemingly sheer obstinacy—once he even agrees to welcome her to his humble home. Then his gruff disdain develops into something of a stretched coincidence about which it’s difficult to discuss the play without dropping spoilers—as well as without giving mac Liammóir plenty of leeway in his plotting.
Maybe it’s fair to note that Martin realizes well before Bairbre that they have met once before in Dublin and in a situation that would best be described as compromising. Knowing what he does of who Bairbre is and how she’s lived up until meeting the trusting and enamored Tom, Martin announces to her that he will allow her to remain under his roof for one night but that she must be gone the following day.
To give The Mountains Look Different symbolic depth, mac Liammóir sets the married couple’s return on St. John’s Eve, when the surrounding farms and mountains are aglow with bonfires. He also introduces several colorful locals—along with a visiting miller named Matthew Conroy (Paul O’Brien) who’s on hand at play’s start with money to help establish his niece Bairbre. Perhaps the most intriguing neighbor is Batty Wallace (Liam Forde), a troubled lad with some musical talent who seems to be hanging around at suspicious moments.
Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that while The Mountains Look Different (bonfires have partially to do with that) begins as a drama, it slowly transforms into melodrama, during which Martin and Bairbre wrangle unpleasantly. Her genuine love for Tom and her determination to live the quiet life they’ve envisioned for themselves gives her the strength to fight Martin’s recalcitrance.
At that she’s successful but only up to a point. Martin accedes to her remaining with Tom on a condition that won’t be detailed here. Going with it for a short while, Bairbre thinks it over—while a sudden fire (that isn’t so bon) blazes. How the fire started and by whose hand propels The Mountains Look Different into even more explosive theatrics. (Thank lighting designer Christian DeAngelis for the reddening environment.)
As mac Liammóir unpacks his overreaching but still hard to resist work, he had to have concluded that the kind of future an Anna Christie sister-under-the-skin might have would be no picnic on the West Ireland mountains. So the upshot of all the action is his raising the stakes here from not only drama to melodrama but also from melodrama to tragedy.
Director Aidan Redmond has gathered the right cast to cover the above-mentioned bases—and Andrea Varga has dressed them well for the occasions. When Horgan enters from his front door to greet Conroy, not with any friendly manner, he could be someone who’s just left West Ireland. Scowling and rough, he stays that way in a highly magnetic performance. Meaney’s blonde Bairbre musters gruffness from inured disappointment, and Pennington’s fresh-faced attitude throughout is just right. Also strong are Forde as Batty Wallace, McKenna Quigley Harrington, Cynthia Mace, Daniel Marconi and Ciaran Byrne.
To shed light on the painful tenor of The Mountain Look Different, it may be helpful to know that mac Liammóir was born Alfred Willmore in London. When he moved to Ireland, founded the Gate and produced, with his own works, the great 19th-century playwrights (Synge, O’Casey, Friel), he decided (consciously? unconsciously?) to become more Irish than the Irish, his new name only the most blaring indication.
Surely, this play is a testament to that aim. Considered from some perspectives, Liammóir’s obdurate intention to be so thoroughly downbeat in the keening Irish tradition might be thought bordering on the parodic, but he does remain on the gut-wrenching side of that border.
The Mountains Look Different opened June 20, 2019, at Theatre Row and runs through July 14. Tickets and information: minttheater.org
