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Two Irish one-acts at Amaryllis
Jim Rutter
Ireland emerging
JIM RUTTER
Amaryllis Theatre Company opened its seventh season with “A Terrible Beauty: Two Irish One-Acts of Violence and Hope,” staging Antoine O’Flatharta’s Blood Guilty, followed by Conor McPherson’s The Good Thief.
Amaryllis chose a strange pair to present here: a stark contrast between a story seen and a story told. Blood Guilty is a fantastic, gripping allegory, resonating even more so today as Ireland emerges into the global economy, further eroding the Irish language and traditions. By contrast, the monologue-loving McPherson takes an entertainingly brief tale and weaves it into an hour cluttered by long stretches of boredom.
Blood Guilty presents a multilayered story of an Ireland emerging from its history of isolation, as the “terrors outside” (finally) intrude upon an existence formerly dominated by family conflicts. Young siblings John and Tom (Stephen Patrick Smith and David Stanger), who may or may not bear responsibility for a spate of countryside killings, invade the home of an older pair of brothers, Dan and Pat (David Simpson and Michael Toner), quickly eclipsing their minor family squabbles with threats of robbery and murder. As the evening progresses, the younger pair destroy tradition and history, an innocent loses his life, and both pairs of brothers fail to own up to their family responsibilities.
As a result of uneven direction and awkwardly staged combat, the play’s excitement comes less from the actual stage violence than from the intensity of the conflict between old and young, peaceful tradition and violent rebelliousness— thoroughly represented and forcefully delivered by Toner and Smith in their verbal struggle. A gripping final image (crafted by Jerold Forsyth’s lighting) ends the play, with Toner trying to save the burning remnants of his past as Smith cradles his dying brother, looking on in furious silence.
Smith reappears in The Good Thief, solely narrating an incident of lost respect between a small-time hood and his occasional employer that quickly escalates into a botched intimidation, only to end nastily in murder, rape, and imprisonment. The tale is often funny, and it’s riveting at those moments when Smith dramatizes the action he narrates, but it’s nonetheless overlong, littered with tangents and blind alleys, including the play’s (dead) ending. I’d say leave at intermission, but when the script is good, Smith’s Thief captivates, and is mostly worth seeing.
JIM RUTTER
Amaryllis Theatre Company opened its seventh season with “A Terrible Beauty: Two Irish One-Acts of Violence and Hope,” staging Antoine O’Flatharta’s Blood Guilty, followed by Conor McPherson’s The Good Thief.
Amaryllis chose a strange pair to present here: a stark contrast between a story seen and a story told. Blood Guilty is a fantastic, gripping allegory, resonating even more so today as Ireland emerges into the global economy, further eroding the Irish language and traditions. By contrast, the monologue-loving McPherson takes an entertainingly brief tale and weaves it into an hour cluttered by long stretches of boredom.
Blood Guilty presents a multilayered story of an Ireland emerging from its history of isolation, as the “terrors outside” (finally) intrude upon an existence formerly dominated by family conflicts. Young siblings John and Tom (Stephen Patrick Smith and David Stanger), who may or may not bear responsibility for a spate of countryside killings, invade the home of an older pair of brothers, Dan and Pat (David Simpson and Michael Toner), quickly eclipsing their minor family squabbles with threats of robbery and murder. As the evening progresses, the younger pair destroy tradition and history, an innocent loses his life, and both pairs of brothers fail to own up to their family responsibilities.
As a result of uneven direction and awkwardly staged combat, the play’s excitement comes less from the actual stage violence than from the intensity of the conflict between old and young, peaceful tradition and violent rebelliousness— thoroughly represented and forcefully delivered by Toner and Smith in their verbal struggle. A gripping final image (crafted by Jerold Forsyth’s lighting) ends the play, with Toner trying to save the burning remnants of his past as Smith cradles his dying brother, looking on in furious silence.
Smith reappears in The Good Thief, solely narrating an incident of lost respect between a small-time hood and his occasional employer that quickly escalates into a botched intimidation, only to end nastily in murder, rape, and imprisonment. The tale is often funny, and it’s riveting at those moments when Smith dramatizes the action he narrates, but it’s nonetheless overlong, littered with tangents and blind alleys, including the play’s (dead) ending. I’d say leave at intermission, but when the script is good, Smith’s Thief captivates, and is mostly worth seeing.
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