Playing Dublin bus conductor Alfie Byrnes (the “man” of the title, carried over from the 1994 film starring a scruffy Albert Finney), Jim Parsons strides on stage sporting a receding pompadour and miked to the max. He makes a half-hearted attempt to affect an Irish accent (e.g., routinely substituting “me” for “my”), but he appears disinclined to put in much effort. It’s not a matter of phonetics: he fails to capture the music of Irish speech. His is an indolent, entitled performance.
Parsons sings adequately but not stirringly, and in any case Stephen Flaherty’s music (composed for the show’s 2002 Lincoln Center debut, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, book by Terence McNally – ordinarily a knockout team) is doggedly bland. The first big number, “Going Up,” a self-referential scene-setter gushed seriatim by a chorus of community-theatre aspirants, goes on … and on, eating up a sizable chunk of the scant (105-minute) running time. It takes a pro like Mare Winningham, playing Alfie’s over-solicitous sister, to break the monotony. Her accent, attitude, and behavior on point, Winningham makes a meal of this thin, rewarmed stew of a musical.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
The production, directed with signature scenic parsimony (chairs, a table, a curtain) by departing Classic Stage Company artistic director John Doyle, is as PC as the movie – which may have seemed ground-breaking in its day but has in the interim forfeited much of its ability to strike a righteous chord. Alfie, a middle-aged, fully closeted (as in 100% virgin) gay man, finally gets up his courage to assay a walk on the wild side – “The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it,” per his idol Oscar Wilde – only to get mugged and humiliated. Clued into Alfie’s orientation at long last (how blind could they be?), his supposed friends initially turn their backs on him – in this production, literally – but eventually come round.
Prior to his misadventure, Alfie feeds his artistic bent by directing community theatre at the local Catholic rectory. Amateur actors make such easy targets, and McNally’s dialogue works every last cliché. Why belabor the point, when countless satirists from Shakespeare onward have already trod this ground more adroitly? Also, how are we to warm to a play – this one — which cruelly mocks the players? The effect is souring.
Alfie attempts to sneak a scorcher – Wilde’s Salome – past the parish priest by describing it as “not immodest … It’s art.” The players get far enough into rehearsals for us to witness some true talent amid the current cast: specifically, A. J. Shively as Alfie’s co-worker crush Robbie and Shereen Ahmed as Adele, the seemingly innocent new girl in town, whom Alfie picks to play Salome. Both characters are assigned reprises of Alfie’s cri de coeur, “Love Who You Love,” and they deliver: Shively at once stalwart and limber of voice, Ahmed delicate but intense. Still, there’s no escaping the creepiness of the set-up: Alfie is using human beings like puppets, in an effort to simulate (and sublimate) the passion that he has denied himself.
Also less than satisfying is a sunny denouement in which Alfie recoups the majority of his friends — all but one diehard bigot. His familiars manage to overcome their moral qualms and general repugnance to accept him back in the fold. It ought to be a feel-good moment — except that, from the outset, we’ve been encouraged to view these actor-wannabes as a bunch of ignorant, pathetically ambitious, self-deluding fools.
A Man of No Importance opened October 30, 2022, at the Classic Stage Company and runs through December 18. Tickets and information: classicstage.org
