"Molly Sweeney' by Amaryllis Theatre (1st revi

From unseeing sight to blind sight on the ould sod
(Faith and begorra, and a fine thing it is, too)

ARMEN PANDOLA

So why should anybody want to go see a play about a blind woman who gains her sight and loses her mind? I don’t know. No, no, that’s not true, I do. It’s because it’s by that wonderful Irish playwright Brian Friel and it includes three of his most delightful creations.

Molly Sweeney is a middle-aged blind woman played with pitch-perfect ease by Pamela Sabaugh. Her small-town life in Donegal, Ireland— did I mention it all takes place in Ireland? I mean, not that that’s important, but it does– anyway, her life in darkness is disrupted and forever changed by a bolt of lightning called Frank Constantine Sweeney, a darlin’ of a man– that’s a joke, because he’s anythin’ but darlin’. A crazy crackpot is what he is, and he gets her to marry him when she’s 41 and he’s a few years more than that and not a decent week’s wages in any of them.

Stephen Patrick Smith delivers us Frank on a plate, with a side of laughter. He’s the one who insists Molly see Dr. Rice, a once-famous eye doctor who restores her sight. He’s played by Michael Toner, and you won’t see a better performance of a man on his way down this side of Dublin.

How the blind experience the world

And did I tell ya that it’s not really a play at all? Not at all. I mean, it is a play, but none like you ever saw. The three characters never talk to each other. No, they all talk right at you. Yes, they do. You see, Friel had this idea of presenting the play the way a blind person experiences the world: in pieces and over time, through touching and smelling and hearing, all experienced in short discrete sensations and not like a sighted person like you and me would. No, we see a thing— a cat, say— all at once. But a blind person— a blind person has to feel its ears, and touch its long body and tail and hear it purr – and that’s a cat.

Oh, and don’t go thinkin’ this is one of those plays that’s more an idea than a play, like some. No, this is about people and what happens to them. People we get to know and love and hate and laugh with and cry for and– and feel for. Real people, and not just characters to push the next plot button.

We learn all about Molly Sweeney, who grows up blind but able to get on in this world better than most. Oh, what a lovely performance by Pamela Sabaugh. Because, you see– and there’s a fine expression (“you see–“) because Molly when she was blind could see better than most, could understand and make some sense of this world. And Sabaugh takes us on that slow journey from unseeing sight to blind sight.

Blind sight? You ever hear of it? No? Well, you have to see the play to experience it. I mean, I can’t really explain it— you have to see it.

In search of the Holy Grail

Then there’s Molly’s totally enthusiastic and incredibly unemployable husband Frank, the man forever searching for his next Holy Grail to chase and chase and chase. And who’s going to pay a man to do that? Nobody, that’s who. And Molly becomes his next Holy Grail. Frank is determined to restore Molly’s sight. Not that seeing has helped Frank much. In fact, poor Frank has seen a lot of the world and read a lot more and knows a thing or two, but nothing worth a damn. If Barry Fitzgerald isn’t in town, then Stephen Patrick Smith will do very well. Very well, thank you. A fine, strong performance. He’ll make you laugh until you cry. Yes.

The third wheel is Dr. Rice, the down-at-the-heels, elegantly-dressed-but-never-totally-sober physician who once was one of the world’s great young eye doctors. How he came to a small hospital in Irish hinterland, not far from where he was born actually– well, that’s another journey. It seems Dr. Rice’s best friend ran off with his beautiful wife, and the fact that it happened more than 20 years ago doesn’t seem to matter. Michael Toner sinks his teeth into this character and doesn’t let go until you cry out Uncle! Splendid, just splendid. The old doctor’s greatest triumph– getting Molly to see again – turns as sour as everything else in his bitter life when the vision he gives Molly destroys her.

How does it do that, you’re askin’? Like most things destroy us – with too much and not too little.

All of this is directed like a fine song is arranged by the Nat King Cole Trio. Tom Reing never lets the pace outrun the story. He takes us intro the world of these three lonely people so we can not only see it but experience it. And the set and the lighting– well, you go see this and you won’t notice them, they’ll just be there like a good bass player, adding a nice steady support that’s a piece of work all its own.

By and for the handicapped

And all of this is put on by that fine company that has been doing this sort of thing for years, Amaryllis, run by Mimi Kenney Smith herself. They’re devoted to putting up plays by and with and about people with handicaps. And they’re doin’ it now at the old Playground at the Adrienne that they have spruced up so that you won’t recognize her when you see the old girl. Thanks be to God. Not just a little paint job to hide the wrinkles but a brand new lobby and a whole new place to see what theater can be– a way to try and make sense of this incredible place and the sad happy lonely caring wicked innocent people in it.

And I know that’s how I should end this little whatever it is, but I just have to say how proud and happy I am that all these fine plays by these fine small companies are makin’ such wonderful theater in this fine city where Forrest and Booth got their start. Isn’t it time we had somebody seein’ what’s goin’ on here?

And one other thing– yes, I know that Ms. Sabaugh who plays Molly like she was born to the role is really blind. But I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t told, and now that I know, I don’t care. I mean what does it matter that she can’t see us? The point bein’ that we can see her. And even if it was us who were blind, so what? A rose is a rose whether we see it or no.



To read another review by Jim Rutter, click here.