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| John Duddy as Tommy. Photo by Valerie Terranova. |
My grade: B+. A strong play with some good performances, a bit unfocused.
Plot and Background
Maiden Productions, in collaboration with Team Theatre, makes its New York debut with this production of Conor McPherson's play about Tommy, a Dubliner no longer young, living in a makeshift bedsit in his uncle's house and performing odd jobs with his friend Doc. One night Tommy breaks up a fight to rescue a woman in distress, not realizing the baggage that may follow her home.
Per the show's website, this production was originally staged at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in October 2021. Maiden Production is founded by two Stella Adler graduates, Molly Ehrenberg-Peters and Haydn Harvey, who both costar in this production.
What I Knew Beforehand
Very little about the play itself, which is always exciting to me, though I know other plays by McPherson (including the timeless and scary The Weir and the bewildering Girl from the North Country).Thoughts:
Play: McPherson's play is an interesting meditation on masculine virility: Tommy is built like an athlete (and played by a former professional boxer) but is hamstrung by his life circumstances--estranged from his wife and two teenage children, living in his uncle's house, perpetually out of pocket--and unable to take any step forward; Doc, his best friend, is about "five to seven" seconds behind everyone else, as well as impotent; Tommy's uncle Maurice, who needs a cane and a flask to function, weeps in grief for the monstrosities in the world he feels helpless to prevent; Kenneth, Aimee's ex, is walking menace but unleashes most of that on a woman who can't fight back; and Aimee, the sole woman, is at the mercy of men who profess to love her but can too easily break her. Theme-wise I find the questions this play and production ask interesting, but structure-wise it meanders a bit too much. The joyful song and dance that Tommy shares with Doc and Aimee never quite reaches an ecstasy, and Kenneth's entrance is too immediately menacing, so that his sudden violence is not surprisingly, only inevitable. The final question raised by Doc's insight from his dream is a particularly McPherson move in its unnerving acknowledgement of the supernatural, but at the same time I'm not clear what Tommy's final moment is telling me, or what I should take home with me, tucked in my pocket, to think about as I fall asleep.
Cast: Looking at production history, I think they cast most of the men a bit younger than written, which affects the lens on their shiftlessness (a Tommy in his 40s not having his act together reads differently than a Tommy in his 50s not having his act together), but let's put that aside with the acknowledgement that this is a transfer from a university production (and a well-done transfer, for the most part). John Duddy brings gravity and sweetness to Tommy, especially in his care for Haydn Harvey's affably awkward Doc. Thomas Shuman's Kenneth is suitably unhinged, though I would have liked more of an arc in the uncovering of his menace. Ehrenberg-Peters plays Aimee with real nuance, catching the others on her sharp edges even as she slowly reveals her softer smiles, her timid hopes. The real star of the night is Lloyd Peters as Uncle Maurice, at turns crotchety and weepy, but oh, the journey takes us on with his big monologue (and McPherson knows how to write a good monologue). Peters is a reminder of what a gift it can be to just listen to someone talk, to hear them think out loud, the thesis inside the ramble.
Design: Karen Loewy Movilla's scenic design pulls out threads of McPherson's themes on virility, with posters of Marvin Gaye and Steve McQueen adorning the dun-colored walls of Tommy's bedsit. Looking at the piles of clutter, the clothes shoved under cot and bed, the box being used as a nightstand, and then at the stained glass doors leading to the garden, one gets the sense that this was once a nice and well-cared-for room slowly gone to seed, a room where if you need to put something down, the floor's as good a place as any (and possibly the cleanest option). This too pulls out the threads of Tommy: a man who once knew how to care for himself, but has been letting that slide too. Sherry Martinez's costume design is sharp, showing the clothes that have been worn, stained, and worn again, and the newer cleaner pieces (Aimee's new coat, the ridiculously oversized sneakers) hinting at a yearning for a better, more affluent existence. Shirley Heather's makeup design, particularly for Aimee, is effective and damning, bruises healing at different rates across her face and throat. J Steve White's fight direction is particularly impressive in such an intimate space: the violence is sudden, scary, and immediately real.
***
Running: Now playing at The Chain Theatre (Maiden Productions) - Opening: October 13, 2022. Closing: October 22, 2022.
Category: play
Length: 2 hours, 5 minutes, including intermission (they post the time as 1hr50, but it ran long at my performance).
Creative Team
Playwright: Conor McPherson
Director: Kathy Gail MacGowan
Designers: Karen Loewy Movilla (Scenic), Sherry Martinez (Costume), Shirley Heather (Makeup), Emily Clare Gocon (Lighting), Nina Troy-Brandt (Sound), J Steve White (Fight Director), Christa Kimlicko Jones (Dialect Coach), Gray Thurstone (Stage Manager).
Cast: John Duddy, Molly Ehrenberg-Peters, Haydn Harvey, Lloyd Peters, Thomas Shuman.
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| Haydn Harvey and John Dunny as Doc and Tommy. Photo by Valerie Terranova. |
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