‘WALKING WITH GHOSTS’: Gabriel Byrne. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

WALKING WITH GHOSTS
Written by Gabriel Byrne
Directed by Lonny Price
Through December 30, 2022
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
(212-719-6200), www.GabrielByrneOnBroadway.com

By David NouNou

Walking With Ghosts is an honest attempt by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne to stage and perform a one-man monologue about his childhood and part of his adulthood in Dublin. Mr. Byrne starts from the day he was born by being yanked out of his mother’s womb, and the struggles she had getting him out, and his shabby and drab surroundings growing up. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Auntie Mame, when Mame Dennis, writing her autobiography and collaborating with her Irish ghostwriter, Brian O’Bannion, regarding her birth and childhood, pens the confusing opener to her memoir: “Like an echo from the caves of Coccamaura, I came forth while Deirdre wept cool tears.” Definition: simply put “on the day I was born, it rained.”  It continues, “How bleak was my puberty in Buffalo.”  All I could think of was how dreary was Mr. Byrne’s puberty in Dublin?

It is not easy writing a compelling two-hour and 30-minute monologue about all the ghosts from his childhood and the past, starting with his parents, siblings, childhood friends, happy moments with grandma going to the cinema, colorful neighbors and drunkards, good and often spiteful teachers; and ultimately the “Catholic priest.” I needn’t finish that sentence. That brings us up to age 14 and end of Act I, clocking in at one hour and 15 minutes.

Act II starts with Mr. Byrne as a teenager, failing miserably at different jobs: plumber, dishwasher, bathroom clerk, until he finally gets to answer an ad for amateur actors to be in a Shakespeare company. This is where he finds his niche and begins to find friends and gain self-confidence. He starts getting small parts and some recognition. He meets his Irish idol, actor Micheál Mac Liammóir and meets Richard Burton for a scene he has with him, being filmed in Venice. From that drunken evening spent with Mr. Burton, Mr. Byrne tells us his downfall from grace due to his alcoholism and ultimately his will to overcome his addiction. Finally ending with the deaths of his mother and his father. As Mr. Byrne tells us, he is walking with ghosts and all these ghosts are inside him now.

There have been many and often effective monologues by actors on the New York stage: Last year’s Reuben Santiago-Hudson in Lackawanna Blues; the late Carrie Fisher back in 2009 in Wishful Drinking; Jesse Tyler Ferguson playing 40 different characters in 2016 in Fully Committed. These stars had the ability to inform as well as entertain. They engaged us from start to finish.

This doesn’t impugn Mr. Byrne as an actor in any way. He has given Broadway three indelible performances: James Tyrone Jr. in A Moon for the Misbegotten, Cornelius Melody in A Touch of the Poet, and James Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He earned two Tony Award nominations for those roles.

However, with Walking With Ghosts, director Lonny Price should have known the tastes of American audiences better and done some strong editing and tightening. A lot of incidental fat could have been trimmed off.  We are left with Mr. Byrne not giving us a performance so much as exorcising his demons.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 27, 2022
Reviewed at October 26, 2022 press preview performance.

‘WALKING WITH GHOSTS’: Gabriel Byrne. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

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‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Willow McCarthy, Brooklyn Shuck, Genevieve O’Reilly & Matilda Lawler. Photo: Joan Marcus

THE FERRYMAN
Written by Jez Butterworth
Directed by Sam Mendes
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.theferrymanbroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Jez Butterworth’s third Broadway drama is also his most provocative. The Ferryman, which recently opened on Broadway after an Olivier Award-winning, sold-out run in London’s West End, is a complicated epic. With a running time of more than three hours, complete with actors speaking in thick Irish brogues, a storyline filled with Anglo-Irish political themes, multiple characters and a plot that sometimes delves into the metaphysical, it is not for the fainthearted or those seeking a light evening of theater. However, for those familiar with the past conflict between the Irish Republican Catholics and U.K.-loyal Protestants in Northern Ireland during the late 20^th century, Mr. Butterworth’s saga is a multi-layered, searing reminder of centuries-old animosities, exquisitely directed and produced.

The Anglo-Irish conflict in Northern Ireland, often called “the Troubles,” was at its worst in 1981 when the story takes place. As the play opens, three IRA goons are shown in a rural area of Derry ambushing a priest, Father Horrigan (Charles Dale). The leader Muldoon (Stuart Graham) tells the priest to keep quiet about a well-preserved corpse of the late Seamus Carney recovered in a nearby bog. This proves to be troubling because the priest knows the Carney family well.

The remainder of the show is set in the home of the Carney family farm in rural County Armagh. Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine) lives there with his ill wife Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly) and seven children, along with sister-in-law and Seamus’ widow Caitlin (Laura Donnelly), Uncle Patrick (Mark Lambert), cranky, chain-smoking Aunt Patricia (Dearbhla Molloy) and wheelchair-bound elderly Aunt Maggie Far Away (Fionnula Flanagan). The Carneys are preparing for the harvest while news of 10 Republican prisoners on a hunger strike disturbs the family, especially since British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refuses to capitulate to any of the IRA’s demands. Father Horrigan arrives to speak in private to Caitlin about the grim news of her husband’s body being found after a decade. When her son Oisin (Rob Malone) eavesdrops and hears the truth about his father, the rest of the play becomes a guessing game of what the ramifications might be. Should the English be blamed? The IRA? Others?

Mr. Butterworth weaves a complex spell in a story featuring more than 20 characters, a live goose and rabbit, a real infant, Irish dancing, revelry and pathos. Granted, some of what is presented here seems riddled in Irish clichés—drinking, quarreling, quoting literature and anti-English diatribes—but the narrative is often compelling and there is a haunting sincerity to the characters and their predicament. Rob Howell’s rustic set is all too real and the performances are consistently outstanding. Paddy Considine is first rate as patriarch Quinn, as is Laura Donnelly as the long-suffering Caitlin. Both Mr. Considine and Ms. Donnelly have the most difficult tasks in the story, displaying a wide range of emotions from joy to tragedy as the tale unfolds. In addition, the supporting cast’s performances are some of the show’s greatest assets, particularly Fionnula Flanagan as Aunt Maggie Far Away.  When she breaks out of her mental fog to deliver a soliloquy about the one true love who always eluded her, it’s one of the true show-stopping moments of The Ferryman. Justin Edwards is also noteworthy with his portrayal of the awkward English farmhand and longtime family friend, Tom Kettle.

Director Sam Mendes brilliantly directs the amazing ensemble of actors, which could not have been easy considering the many dialects depicted here. The Ferryman might be a hard sell to American audiences unfamiliar with the intricacies of Irish history and conflicts, but beneath the political veneer, Mr. Butterworth’s epic has all the elements of a great tragedy, centered on a family slowly losing everything, from love to trust and hope.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 25, 2018
Reviewed at October 24, 2018 press performance.

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Laura Donnelly, Genevieve O’Reilly, Sean Frank Coffey & Paddy Considine. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Niall Wright, Matilda Lawler, Justin Edwards, Mark Lambert, Fra Fee & Willow McCarthy. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: Laura Donnelly. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Fionnula Flanagan & Mark Lambert. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: The cast. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: Paddy Considine. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Fra Fee, Tom Glynn-Carney & Conor MacNeill. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: Genevieve O’Reilly & Sean Frank Coffey. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Carla Langley, Brooklyn Shuck, Willow McCarthy, Matilda Lawler, Tom Glynn-Carney & Rob Malone. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Glenn Spears, Charles Dale, Dean Ashton & Stuart Graham. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: Glenn Spears & Paddy Considine. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: (left to right) Willow McCarthy, Brooklyn Shuck & Dearbhla Molloy. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE FERRYMAN’: The company. Photo: Joan Marcus

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‘HARRY POTTER’ STAR AS BILLY THE CRIPPLE: Daniel Radcliffe in ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan.’ Photo: Johann Persson

THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN
Written by Martin McDonagh
Directed by Michael Grandage
Cort Theatre
138 West 48th Street, (212-239-6200), www.crippleofinishmaan.com

By Scott Harrah

Daniel Radcliffe has more than put the Harry Potter days behind him with his prolific body of stage work on both sides of the Atlantic. From Equus to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to starring in this Martin McDonagh import from London, Mr. Radcliffe has shed the famous film franchise and reinvented himself as a headliner on Broadway and the West End. So it might seem odd that, although he’s the star here, his is the least interesting character. In this dark comedy set on the rustic island of Inishmaan, in the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland, the rural townsfolk have all the great lines, much of which are about Mr. Radcliffe’s Billy the Cripple, an orphan born with a disfigured left side, including a mangled leg and shriveled-up hand.  The play, thin on plot, seems more like a character study of rural Irish life in 1934 than anything else. If you can overlook the thick brogues and some uneven twists, much of what’s here is “fecking” hilarious (to borrow from the crazy vernacular of the island). If you’ve ever lived in a small town anywhere, know how gossipy rural people can be and have even a drop of Irish blood (or can appreciate the quirky charms of the Irish), the characters are especially familiar and raucously funny.

When news breaks that a Hollywood crew is shooting a film on a neighboring island, Billy hopes they will discover him, offering a chance to escape the island and go to America.

In Act One, we meet the many eccentric residents of the island, their off-the-wall slang and love of repeating things just for the hell of it. There are Billy’s “aunties”, sisters Eileen (Gillian Hanna) and Kate (Ingrid Craigie) Osbourne, both of whom raise him and also run the local grocery. They never have much available besides canned peas. Bartley McCormick (Conor MacNeill) likes to torment one of the sisters by asking if he can buy “sweeties” like “Minty-Os,” but her reply is always that she only has for sale that which he can see (canned peas). This repetitive, sing-song humor runs throughout the show, and the dialogue is often crisp and hilarious.

Billy secretly fancies Helen McCormick (Sarah Greene), the mean, red-headed sister of Bartley.  Her job is delivering eggs, but she spends most of her time in the Osbourne’s shop taunting Billy or her brother (and cracking eggs on people’s heads).

There is the town gossip Johnnypateenmike (Pat Shortt), who is eager to spread any tale, true or not, and is especially interested in prattle about Billy. He likes to keep his 90-year-old Mammy (June Watson) drunk, while she can’t wait to see him dead.  Others in the town include Babbybobby (Padraic Delaney), who rows people to nearby islands in a boat, and Doctor (Gary Lilburn).

The character of Billy is essentially a foil to everyone in Inishmaan. In Act One, Mr. Radcliffe gets few chances to show off his acting chops, but everyone else certainly does, as this is an ensemble piece. (Yes, listing Daniel Radcliffe as the headliner might be misleading, but big names sell tickets.) Tension mounts when we learn how Billy plans to leave the island, and whether he will ever return.

Playwright Martin McDonagh has a rare gift for black comedy and depicting reality with a twisted, farcical sensibility. He was at his most effective in this genre on Broadway in 2006’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore , a play about IRA terrorists on the island adjacent to Inishmaan.  This is actually the first in a series by Mr. McDonagh set in the Aran Islands (Inishmore was the second), first produced in London in 1996.

The humor in Inishmaan lies primarily in the exaggerated ways everyone reacts to Billy. We actually get to know just as much (if not more) about the supposed supporting characters than Billy himself, and things start making very little sense as Billy’s story unravels in Act Two.

Mr. McDonagh has penned better plays (The Pillowman and The Beauty Queen of Leenanne, for example). However, although this is far from a flawless work, the overall tale is wryly amusing and the characters unusually whimsical.

Director Michael Grandage does an amazing job of getting such distinct performances from everyone, and each is equally memorable and superb. Mr. Radcliffe, of course, is magnificent as always. Just don’t come to Inishmaan expecting it to all be about him. Do come, however, if you want to laugh for two and a half hours at crisp dialogue and some of the funniest, most unconventional characters on Broadway this season.

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS: In ‘Cripple of Inishmaan,’ Daniel Radcliffe dreams of being discovered by a film crew on a neighboring island. Photo: Johann Persson

The Cripple of Inishmann – 6 Tony Nominations, including: Best Drama Revival, Best Dramatic Supporting Actress – Sarah Greene, Best Director – Michael Grandage, Best Set Design, Best Lighting Design, & Best Sound Design.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 25, 2014
Reviewed at press performance April 24, 2014

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EMERALD ISLE GEM: Brian F. O’Byrne & Debra Messing in ‘Outside Mullingar.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR
Written by John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Doug Hughes
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200), www.ManahattanTheatreClub.com

By David NouNou

You know the old saying, “The two things you can be certain of in life are death and taxes”? Well, the two things you can be sure of in any Irish themed-play are talks about deaths and wakes, but seldom are they told as humorously, charmingly and tenderly as in John Patrick Shanley’s new play, Outside Mullingar. However, this is not the main focus of the show; it is just the framework of this lovely and delicately written play.

Anthony Reilly (Brian F. O’Byrne) and his father Tony Reilly (Peter Maloney) have just returned home after attending the Muldoon wake. Muldoon is survived by his wife Aoife (Dearbhla Molloy) and his daughter Rosemary (Debra Messing). The Reillys and Muldoons also happen to be across-the-road neighbors, so there is a bond between the families. Tony is old and realizes his mortality, so his big dilemma is whether he should leave his land to his shy and introverted son Anthony or sell it to an American cousin. In order to be able to sell said property, there is a piece of the driveway that has been sold to the Muldoons 30 years earlier when Tony needed money to buy a ring for his now-deceased wife. Papa Muldoon gave this piece of land to Rosemary as a present when she was a little girl. Naturally, Rosemary refuses to sell this piece for her own personal reasons. So starts this wonderful little tale of Blarney.

Mr. Shanley knows how to write delectable parts for actors who start out as introverted caterpillars and then bloom into beautiful butterflies. Who could ever forget his Oscar-winning screenplay for Moonstruck? Instead of the metropolis of Brooklyn and Italians, he mixes it up with farmland Mullingar and the Irish. It may not be as mesmerizing as Moonstruck, but it still hits the right chords to make us care, for his characters, all of whom are imbued with humanity and humor.

Mr. O’Byrne is an incredible stage actor and also one of the finest. He is also blessed with stage presence and charisma. Broadway audiences first saw him in Martin McDonough’s The Beauty Queen of Leanane, followed by countless plays: Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia, his Tony- winning role in Frozen, and Mr. Shanley’s earlier, brilliant Doubt (one of the best plays ever written). Mr. O’Byrne has always delivered a new character to each of his new roles, and Anthony is no exception. One can’t help but want to protect and cheer for this shy noble caterpillar who will ultimately find its wing and soar.

It is such a pleasure to report that Debra Messing is making an auspicious Broadway debut. She is still as beautiful as she was in the TV sitcom “Will & Grace” and thankfully has managed to shed her cloying, needy and selfish Grace persona. She is a delicious frumpy spitfire here, and manages to pull off a creditable Irish brogue.

Peter Maloney is a wonderful veteran stage character actor who first came on the Broadway scene in Hughie/Duet  with Ben Gazzara in1975. How gratifying to finally see him do an original part that hopefully gets him some recognition come Tony season. His cantankerous Tony is full of humor, anxiety and thorniness. His scenes with the equally delightful Ms. Molloy are a joy as they volley their barbs against each other.

Mr. Shanley has a wonderful director in Doug Hughes. They both won their Tonys for Doubt. They understand each other’s language and rhythms, thus they complement each other for the stage. Outside Mullingar may not be inspirational, but it will certainly put a smile on your face and give you a warm, fuzzy glow on these cold and snowy New York nights.

FAMILY FRIENDS: Debra Messing and Peter Maloney in ‘Outside Mullingar.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Tony Nominated for Best Play of 2014

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published January 26, 2014
Reviewed at  press performance on January 25, 2014

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