42
August 21, 2013 | www.gaycitynews.com
THEATER
Irish Eyes are Penetrating in London Theater
Rosaleen Linehan and Niamh McGowan in Pirandello’s “Liolà,” directed by Richard Eyre, at the Lyttelton through November 6.
BY ANDY HUMM
T
wo weeks of theater in London and two of the best plays were by Irishmen — a new one from Conor McPherson and a revival from Martin McDonagh with Daniel Radclif fe, who continues to evolve from film megastar to one of the shining lights of the stage. Actor Peter McDonald, who has known McPherson since their University College Dublin days in the early ‘90s, wrote that Conor often says you need to put the audience in “first class” and “get to that place where you do not even notice the writing.” It’s what McPherson does so consistently and what many playwrights — mostly playing with themselves — fail to. I got to see McPherson’s “The Night Alive” on its last day at the Donmar Warehouse, but would confidently bet it will get a New York run and a worldwide audience along with the rest of Conor’s canon. He was aided in London by the intimacy of the 250-seat Donmar, an enviable ensemble led by Ciarán Hinds and Jim Norton (just of f Broadway stints), and an able director named Conor McPherson. But this little story of desperate and literally bloodied people could fill a big house as well. This “Night” is lit up by echoes of Beckett, Pinter, “The Honeymooners,” and the Gospels, shifting from comedy to horror to tragedy on a dime and giving dignity and beauty to people many would dismiss as “losers.” No political speeches here, just very human beings. McDonagh’s “The Cripple of Inishmaan” is getting a welcome revival from director Michael Grandage as part of his new company’s season at
the Noël Coward Theatre (to Aug. 31). Starring is a splendid Radcliffe as “Cripple” Billy, but it’s really the work of a terrific ensemble perfectly hitting all the dark comic notes in this admixture of Beckett and “Saturday Night Live” in its heyday. We are a long way from the winsome stage-Irish humor of “The Quiet Man” and into something painfully funny and revealing about what my friend Bernárd Lynch calls “the first and last British colony,” started 700 years ago and still not united with Northern Ireland. The English, American, and Italian offerings in town were not too shabby either. Pirandello’s “Liolà” (no, I had never heard of it either, and the title character is a guy) is the kind of play the National excels at like no other theater — taking a forgotten 100-year-old work by a major playwright, commissioning a new version (written by Tanya Ronder), and mounting a production not with stars but with the best stage actors around. Not to mention putting the National’s former artistic director Richard Eyre at the helm. This uncharacteristic comedy for Pirandello centers on how wealth is passed through male heirs — an unshakeable tradition that gets some serious upending as a childless older landowner (a formidable James Hayes) yearns for what randy Liolà (a merry Rory Keenan) does so easily as he repopulates the town with progeny by women to whom he is not married. But it is the women who are the real interest here (notably Rosaleen Linehan as an aged aunt and Niamh McGowan as Ciuzza, the town good-time gal), using what little power they have to survive and advance. (As in some other productions I’ve seen in London, peasants of whatever ethnicity are played by Irish actors, whom I am sure are glad for the work if not the underlying
JOHAN PERSSON
CATHERINE ASHMORE
Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh score with new productions
Daniel Radcliffe in Martin McDonagh’s “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” directed by Michael Grandage, at the Noël Coward Theatre through August 31.
casting concept.) It took several scenes for this one to come together, but when it does the results are very satisfying. (To Nov. 6 at the Lyttelton.) Nick Payne’s new “Same Deep Water as Me,” directed by John Crowley at the Donmar (to Sep. 28), is a comedy that takes on a profession that little theatrical light has been shed on — personal injury law. What starts out as a Brit-com evolves into a tense but funny courtroom drama and ends with a coda that combines violence and a hint of redemption — maybe too much. The lead law partners (Daniel Mays and Nigel Lindsay) are spot on as are the supporting players (Monica Dolan, Peter Forbes, and Joanna Griffin), who do double duty as shakedown artists and then court officers. Isabella Laughland gets a memorable star turn on the witness stand as a Tesco delivery driver falsely accused of causing an accident. Marc Wootton is riveting and frightening as Kevin, who dreams up the false claim, and Niky Wardley as his conflicted wife gives the play its heart. Sets are by the legendary Scott Pask. The National Theatre revived James Baldwin’s little-known “The Amen Corner” from 1954, which he wrote fresh off his breakthrough novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” — and against the advice of his agent who wanted him to finally make some money writing for magazines. The play, which closed August 14, comes out of his Gospel church roots and is set in Harlem in 1953. Melodrama is redeemed by intense writing and, here, a magnificent company directed by Rufus Norris and led by Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Secrets and Lies”) as Sister Margaret, pastor of a storefront church dominated by strong women trying
c
LONDON, continued on p.43