Archives for January 31, 2011

In the Greater New York section of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review the Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway revival of Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney. Here’s an excerpt.
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Why is is that American productions of the works of Brian Friel, the greatest playwright of the English-speaking world, are so hard to come by? It’s been two years since I last saw one, which is far too long. So it is good news indeed that the Irish Repertory Theatre, my favorite Off-Broadway company, is performing “Molly Sweeney,” a three-person show about a 41-year-old woman who undergoes an operation to regain the sight she lost as a baby. “Molly Sweeney” is one of Mr. Friel’s most remarkable plays, yet it hasn’t been presented in New York since 1996, which I find even harder to fathom. Fortunately, this revival, staged by Charlotte Moore, the company’s artistic director, is immensely persuasive, and I have no doubt that anyone who sees it will be converted on the spot to Mr. Friel’s cause.
“Molly Sweeney” is a three-person play constructed along the same “Rashomon”-like lines as Mr. Friel’s “Faith Healer,” in which the characters speak to the audience but not to one another, telling their collective tale from their own sharply different perspectives. The personalities here are no less varied. Molly (Geraldine Hughes) is a strong, serene woman who long ago came to terms with her disability and now fears–with good reason–the unknowable consequences of regaining her sight. Her husband Frank (Ciarán O’Reilly) is a garrulous ne’er-do-well who sees in Molly’s operation the possibility that his own life will be changed, only for the better. And Mr. Rice (Jonathan Hogan), the small-town opthalmologist who performs the surgery, is a man of squandered promise who is sure that operating on Molly will restore to him the high hopes of his lost youth.
What follows is a devastating parable of disappointment in all its terrible forms, one that is vastly more powerful because it is so understated….
Never do you feel as though Ms. Moore’s three fine actors are “performing.” They appear instead to be real people who are telling you about something that happened to them. All the art is carefully concealed–but don’t be deceived, for this production is artful in every aspect….
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Read the whole thing here.

Just because I’m in Florida doesn’t mean I’m taking it easy. Here’s what I did last week:
• I wrote a 2,500-word essay about Eugene O’Neill and the first 8,100 words of the fourth chapter of Black Beauty: A Life of Duke Ellington.
• On Friday I saw the opening night of Orlando Shakespeare’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
• I flew up to New York on Saturday morning and saw two shows, the Irish Rep’s Molly Sweeney and Classic Stage Company’s Three Sisters. Then I returned to Winter Park on Sunday, having written and filed my review of Molly Sweeney for today’s Wall Street Journal, arriving just in time to pick up Mrs. T and go hear an afternoon concert by the Brazilian Guitar Quartet.
• I rehearsed my first play.
Regarding the last of these items, I have big news: if you’re going to be anywhere near Winter Park, Florida, on Tuesday night, you have a chance to come see the first forty minutes or so of Satchmo at the Waldorf, my one-man show about Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser, his manager. Not only is this the plays first performance anywhere, but it’a also my debut as a theatrical director. The amazing Dennis Neal is playing Armstrong and Glaser. The performance is at Rollins College and admission is free.
Here’s part of the press release:

Teachout started writing his first play, a one-man show based on Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, during his 2010 visit to the Winter Park Institute. Now Satchmo at the Waldorf is moving toward its first commercial production. In collaboration with the drama department of Rollins College, Teachout will present the first public performance of staged excerpts from Satchmo at the Waldorf and talk about the process of transforming a best-selling biography into a one-man play….

Go here for more details.

“Only the skilled can judge the skilfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result.”
C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost