‘The Seafarer’ is a Dark and Amusing Tale of Redemption (Review)
Irish playwright Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer" is powered by a magnificent performance from D.C. theater veteran Marty Lodge.
Though certainly a dark and amusing tale of Christmas redemption, Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer is just as powerfully a contemplation on what it is to knock along in a life pot-holed with bad luck and dysfunction. Indeed, almost all of the first act is a fly-on-the-wall immersion in a certain kind of seedy male domesticity.
Amid peeling wallpaper and rising damp, the house buzzes with bark, banter, and potted philosophizing as mismatched cups, milk possibly past its sell-by date, and a lifetime’s unhealthy relationship with alcohol arrive and depart. When trouble eventually comes to call, it’s nearly subsumed by the general miasma of intentions — good and bad — giving way to the proffering of yet more unsolicited commentary and another refill.
The joy of McPherson is in this attention to psychological detail and his keen ear for the working-class language of his native Ireland and all it can convey — be it yelled, muttered, or withheld. Just as clever is the way he surfaces his characters’ stasis — chosen or imposed — with word or suggestion.
As Christmas Eve arrives in the elderly Richard Harkin’s worse-for-the-wear abode near the coast (delivered via Andrew R. Cohen’s superbly seedy set), we learn that his currently-lodging brother James “Sharky” Harkin has drunk himself into unemployment, while Richard himself has decided that living half-crocked is well worth the price.
Visitor Ivan Curry proves to have yet again scuttled a marriage in which he is anything but happy, while another visitor, Nicky Giblin, can’t resist a card game that threatens to clean him out of his Christmas money.
It’s always two steps forward and a good two steps back. Yet, even as McPherson builds this world of down-on-their-luck Irishmen, lobbing their insults and being their own worst enemies, he manages to inject a major dose of existential angst in the form of a Mr. Lockhart, a final, unexpected, and ultimately unwelcome, visitor.
Drawing on a very particular Irishness, the challenge here is always going to be in capturing the cadence of the language and the snap, crackle, and pop of the men’s verbal dynamic. Put simply, this is a very talky play, and if you aren’t savoring the voices, the tone, and the timing, it will quickly begin to feel like a hot air balloon dragging its tethers. And that, alas, is the problem here.
Although director Ryan Rilette’s pacing is energized (and credit is due for a production that is a late addition to the season), the timing of the ensemble — with one notable exception — is off. It may be nanoseconds, but it’s just enough to disrupt McPherson’s carefully orchestrated music.
The one exception is Marty Lodge as the unstoppable curmudgeon Richard. Holding forth from his clapped-out recliner, the elderly and semi-blind Richard runs a verbal locomotive that vacillates between insults and demands and back again. Richard is McPherson’s prize cynic, his commentary arriving like a foregone conclusion on life: if it was that easy, we all would have done it.
Many would default to a cliché with this remit, but Lodge builds this man from the ground up — detail by authentic detail — exuding a force of personality undaunted by frailties and rampant alcoholism. From the carefully placed slippered feet to his gravelly monotone, he alone has the certainty and whip-hand delivery the play calls for. If he’d had just a bit more to play against, the production would positively sing.
This is not to say that the rest of the ensemble is bad, they are simply not quite what is called for. As the morose Sharky, Chris Genebach brings an agitated gloominess to his failed man, but not the bounce needed for his sparring with Richard.
There is also something a tad overdone in the emotions evoked by his romantic aspirations or his later peril at the hands of Mr. Lockhart. Yes, his type of hard-man can be emotional — in fact, they might be explosively so when finally triggered — but this feels a smidgen too forced.
Also close but not quite on the mark, is Michael Glenn as Ivan. A shade shoutier than necessary, Glenn delivers some of the comedy, but not quite the needed timing. As Mr. Lockhart, the purveyor of McPherson’s fabulously dark imaginings, Marcus Kyd also never quite convinces. Angling for a late-night card game with particularly high stakes, this off-beat visitor needed a certain kind of charm and menace, and Kyd never quite gets beyond a slick demeanor.
Stronger is Maboud Ebrahimzadeh as Nicky, the flash young man now dating Sharky’s ex. If not quite getting the tone right, Ebrahimzadeh nevertheless offers a volatility and exuberance that works in good counterpoint to Richard’s lively drone.
Still, The Seafarer is a chance to see why McPherson continues to be celebrated and to enjoy Lodge’s star turn in the intimate Round House surrounds.
And despite all the effing and blinding and boozing, there is an ending fit to warm the cockles of a Catholic’s heart — even if the rest of us would have properly enjoyed the appearance of a handbasket.
The Seafarer (★★★☆☆) runs through Dec. 31 at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md. Tickets are $46 to $83. Call 240-644-1100 or visit www.roundhousetheatre.org.
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