Villanova's Prayers of Sherkin

?The river of life flows through many a curiosity,? a character notes in Sebastian Barry's Prayers of Sherkin, now receiving its belated U. S. premiere at Villanova University in a moving production directed by James J. Christy. The remark aptly sums up the play's ultimate wisdom. Set in the Ireland of 1890, it depicts the crisis of the Hawke family, the sole survivors of a small millenarian sect that had settled on the bare, windswept Atlantic island of Sherkin to await the coming of the New Jerusalem. Forbidden by the sect's visionary founder from marrying outside the group, the family faces extinction unless either a suitable mate, promised by the now-departed founder, arrives to wed its last hope, the nubile Fanny (Marcie Thurstlic), or the world itself reaches its prophesied term. There seems no sign of either.

The family ekes out a precarious living selling its homemade candles to the mainland, and nurses its fading expectation. Its patriarch, John (James F. Schlatter), keeps the faith but must deal with his own mounting despair. Fanny's spinster aunts, Hannah (Joanna Rott?) and Sarah (Taylor Williams), their lives already spent, pace the few acres of ground that is both their world and their grave. Jesse, Fanny's younger brother, is a barren branch of the tree, a gentle mystic whose visions both recall the generative faith of the founder and attest its waning force.

Though John rules the family, it is Fanny who is its last, vital flame. Docile and obedient, she seems prepared to bury her loved ones and wait out life with Jesse. A chance encounter on the mainland with the unprepossessing Patrick (Jared Michael Delaney), a bachelor twice her age, suddenly awakens her. The effect is reciprocal, but Patrick's courtship appears doomed, since the family will be obliged to shun Fanny if she marries outside the faith. .

Barry resolves the dilemma with a deus ex machina, as the deceased founder (Stephen Patrick Smith), appears to Fanny in a vision and tells her what she needs to hear. In the hands of a less capable dramatist and a less sensitive director, the play might not weather the moment, but Barry and Christy guide it home. Barry, whose The Steward of Christendom received a luminous production at the Lantern Theater a few seasons ago, is a genuine poet of the theater, and Christy has served him well, eliciting uniformly fine performances from all participants, who range from seasoned actors to members of Villanova's drama program, including a freshman undergraduate. Those of John and Hannah particularly stand out, and Marcie Thurstlic's Fanny combines modesty and ardor. Nick Embree's scenic design works well on the tricky stage space of Vasey Hall, and captures the play's central metaphor. John Stovicek's music and sound design are essential.

Prayers of Sherkin marks James Christy's final production as a member of Villanova's faculty. It plays through February 19, and ought not to be missed.? ROBERT ZALLER