Into the burgeoning discussion of where theater will head as the pandemic runs loose around the globe, the Irish Repertory Theatre has generously tossed a fine and illustrative virtual revival of Conor McPherson’s The Weir, which the company produced in 2013 and brought back with a slightly different cast in 2015.
To begin with, the IRT has faithfully adhered to current protocol by honoring social distancing, a challenge theater producer, directors and actors are mooting daily these days. Dan Butler, as Jack, was videoed in Vermont; Tim Ruddy, as Brendan, in New Jersey; John Keating in North Carolina; Sean Gormley in Brooklyn; and Amanda Quaid in Connecticut. Incidentally, the five actors, each offering a superb performance, are a mix of both the 2013 and 2015 productions.
More detailed discussions of the work, which put McPherson on the map in 1997 (it debuted on Broadway in 1999), will be jollied farther down. For the next moments, it seems helpful to concentrate on how with this revival director Ciarán O’Reilly has contributed to the uncertain state of theater in troubled shuttered theaters times.
This Weir is not a gallery version—in contrast, say, to Richard Nelson’s cleverly constructed What Do We Need to Talk About? and And So We Come Forth. It takes place on the set Charlie Corcoran designed for the IRT’s live presentations. The actors are superimposed on the set and appear only in one-shots. They’re never seen together. (Forget about a group curtain call to deserved applause.)
It can be said that over the last several decades and due to the influence of films, theater has become more cinematic in its devices. This time around The Weir relies on movie techniques far more than on stage techniques. The actors are never shown as if from a distance, as they would, of course, be viewed from a stage. They are seen from a middle-distance and often in even closer proximity. They do interact. They address each other and even light each other’s cigarettes as well as pour and pass the many drinks imbibed in the two-hours they spend in the pub called The Weir.
As a result, the actions require theater director O’Reilly, always in top form fulfilling his IRT stage duties, to resort to film demands. Take editing. As a matter of fact, an editor is credited: Sarah Nichols. (The sound editor is M. Florian Staab.) Heretofore if theater directors have ever had to worry themselves about editing, it’s more likely to involve their give-and-take with playwrights.
Since the new approach to bringing theater to lockdown home screens is in its early days, there remain wrinkles needing to be ironed out. On stage, actors express their reactions in the moment. It looks as if O’Reilly had his five players record a series of reactions that Nichols could cut in. Every once in a while, the awkward solution is noticeable.
Lighting is another problem. For much of the time, for instance, Butler is captured in sepia tones not prevalent at the other locales. Does this have anything to do with an autumnal Vermont atmosphere? Probably not.
As for this up-close-and-personal look at McPherson’s play—which is in the grand tradition of barroom plays, Irish-bar division—the intermissionless entry remains consistently affecting. It certainly holds its own against the father of all Irish barroom plays, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Again, a group of people craving companionship congregate to tell each other stories and confess their harbored concerns.
Talk about the Irish troubles! In The Weir a series of ghost scarifiers are aired. This prompts pub newcomer Valerie to import a more pertinent account about her daughter that stops the listeners in their tracks. As the four patrons and proprietor Brendan buy drinks, often “small” ones, for each other, they become alternately crotchety and conciliatory. In time, their individual loneliness breaks through. Indeed, confining the actors to constantly shifting individual frames becomes a metaphor for their unrelieved isolation. How nifty is that for not-live-theater compensations?
One perspective from which The Weir might be judged is that it doesn’t veer from the typical barroom play in which upsetting truths emerges and disillusionment sneaks in. Nevertheless, similar takes can prevail because of the facility with which they’re imparted. McPherson is a master of this. Hewing to the template, he has confirmed bachelor Jack intone, “Hope is all in the end.” And if, as Alexander Pope would have it, hope springs eternal, it surely tries its damnedest in barroom plays. Remember that the Iceman Cometh saloon owner is Harry Hope.
FYI: A weir is a fence placed in water to catch fish. McPherson has it signifying his dramatis personae as trapped in a bar but really trapped more dramatically in themselves.
A final observation: For quite some time toward the denouement, Quaid is photographed facing right. Amazingly, she has a profile so reminiscent of Madame X in the magnificent and once-scandalous John Singer Sargent portrait that she silently declares herself the ideal casting choice should a film ever be shot about that elusive lady.
The Weir “opened” as an online digital experience on July 21, 2020 and runs through July 25. Information and reservations: irishrep.org
