What is it with bar plays? Or what could also be called saloon plays? What’s the appeal to playwrights? For some time, there have been two bar/saloon plays ranked highly in American Theater Annals—Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh and William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life, both seen first in 1939. (Say, what was going on in that late Depression-pre-World War II era? Was it unusually heavy drinking reflecting worry about the impending future?)
Tennessee Williams, prolific as he always was, wrote not one but two of the genre, although both are not usually rated with his best work—In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, a one-act, and Small Craft Warnings, in which he even acted as a replacement. (He wasn’t bad as a barfly version of himself.)
What do bars, saloons have in common that make them so playwright-tempting? The answer seems to be that they’re handy spots for characters who don’t necessarily know each other to drown not only their sorrows at the bottom of a drained glass but also to speak their truths more easily to strangers. Why not? They’re already under the tongue-loosening influence or heading in that unhinged direction.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
In other words, a playwright’s frequent purpose—to put it succinctly—is to offer a mixed-and-stirred dramatic drink of revealed secrets and lies. Barrooms serve the purpose handily, don’t they?
A more recent addition to the impressive bar/saloon list is Conor McPherson’s The Weir, written in 1997, when he was 26. (It debuted stateside in 1999.) Immediately, the accomplished work placed the Dublin-born McPherson on the Playwrights-to-Watch list. (Girl from the North Country, set not in Ireland but in Duluth, Minnesota is his most recent Broadway must-see.)
Now The Weir, based on stories his grandfather recounted, is revived by the Irish Repertory Theatre and not for the first time. This one is so in the IRT sights that it’s the fourth time artistic director Charlotte Moore and producing director Ciarán O’Reilly have presented the play to audiences, which have apparently made their eager appreciation clear. The previous three outings were 2013, 2015, and, during the pandemic, a 2020 virtual presentation.
Fans are aware and newcomers will quickly learn that The Weir, more a dramedy than an out-and-out comedy, takes place in the bar of a house owned by Brendan (Johnny Hopkins). It’s a well-stocked space—Charlie Corcoran, the set designer—that suggests Brendan has more of the ready to invest in it than he appears to. (Incidentally, McPherson doesn’t look to be conjuring the suggestive “weird” in his choice of title and locale. It’s more like he’s just familiar with the Northwest Ireland Leitrim-Sligo area.)
The magnetic action begins instantly when dropping by for non-stop pints and “small ones” on this chilly night are regulars Jack (Dan Butler), Jim (John Keating), and Finbar (Sean Bromley), who’s brought along newcomer Valerie (Sarah Street), the new resident at the old Maura Nealon house. (Maura remains unseen.) Their being irretrievably, amusingly rowdy regulars accounts for the dramedy categorizing.
Though Jack, Jim, and Finbar know each other well and have long weathered misunderstandings, that doesn’t mean McPherson has no secrets and lies for them to divulge. With the jibes exchanged—mostly between Jack and Finbar—they inebriatedly amble into something unusually grim to be gregarious about.
The attention-getting topic introduced: Ghost stories. As the banter multiples and more and more pints and small ones are quaffed, Jack, Finbar, and Jim get to telling haunting stories of fairy roads abounding on local thoroughfares, Ouija boards, dead bodies appearing on a staircase, a child’s grave—all mysterious, all surreal, all unbelievable but teasing to be believed. This is while sound designer Drew Levy keeps a scarifying wind howling outside Brendan’s barroom door.
When the men have taken their eerie turns, Valerie, who’s been attentive and quiet, is moved to tell her much more personal tale, no aspects of which will be reported here, other than to say it involves a daughter.
The effect of these sequences is an audience-gripping silence. It could be said that there are different kinds of theater silences—for instances, the silence accompanying character and incident establishment, the silence that follows the black-out on a devastating tragedy. The silence here is the magical kind that overtakes an enthralled audience, an audience concentrated on every frightening word, a silence that threatens to halt breathing, a silence during which not even a single cough breaks through, a silence worth the admission price.
Further guaranteeing the stories have maximum effect are the acting and O’Reilly’s flawless direction, which is little surprise. O’Reilly has pulled off his slick tricks on all the previous productions. Gormley and Keating have also staffed all four, Butler in three of the four.
The three regulars may even be outdoing themselves this time around, Butler especially. Just before final curtain Jack is comfortable enough to tell his personal story, a drinker’s confession of the lonely life he leads at times when he’s not being the barroom jokester. As the isolated Jack, Butler is deeply moving. Production newcomers Street and Hopkins acquit themselves admirably as well.
The current revival is so successful that audiences sold on it will undoubtedly look forward to a next return. It’s a good bet O’Reilly and team will, too.
The Weir opened July 17, 2025, at the Irish Repertory Theatre and runs through August 31. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
