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Charlie Corcoran

The Emperor Jones – Extraordinary Theater

03/14/2017

Serious voodoo is being practiced on West 22nd Street these days. Prepare to be immersed in the vengeful actions of a spirit world made lucid by a sensational production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.

Brutus Jones (Obi Abili), having killed another man in a dice game, was jailed in the States, but somehow escaped to a Caribbean island. Details are kept pointedly unclear. During a confrontation in the backward village where he found himself, Jones’ antagonist shot to kill, but his gun misfired.

Thinking quickly, the erstwhile target declared he couldn’t be dispatched by a lead bullet, only one of silver. Natives assumed all powerful magic. The interloper became a barbarous, self-serving Emperor. Savvy and prepared, money sequestered outside the country, he’s ready to flee when the time comes.

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Andy Murray, Obi Abili

Jones is informed by cowed confederate, Henry Smithers (the only white man), that his “palace” servants have deserted him for the jungle. Response is disdainful and cocky. When sinister drums start, he nonetheless realizes time has come to abandon the ersatz throne. It’s three hours till nightfall, Jones knows the route out, and has cleverly hidden food. What could go wrong?

The rest of the chronicle follows his journey. Impeded by nature made hostile; haunted, torn, and misdirected by “the invisibles,” he suffers exhaustion, starvation and madness.

There are an infinite number of ways one might manifest the above. The symbiotic creatives at Irish Rep, under the adroit helm of Director Ciaran O’Reilly, offer a visually and audibly inventive, palpably menacing, magical scenario. O’Reilly, proven skillful with both naturalism and musicals is also apparently superb with the inconceivable. Concept and coordination are as outstanding as his lead’s performance.

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Actor Obi Abili plays Brutus Jones as if possessed. Credibly egotistical and amoral, his character’s progressive shock and terror at what he’s experiencing is apparent from eyes to bodywork. We feel him wracked both by emotion and actual obstruction.  You’ll feel yourself tense and wince. The fire-in-his-belly performance is memorable. This is only Mr. Abili’s second appearance in the United States. Watch him rise.

Unfortunately Andy Murray seems not to have figured out who Smithers is, which communicates as being insubstantial onstage.

Barry McNabb’s terrific Choreography shapes not only an evocative ceremonial dance by the Witch Doctor (a sinuous and emphatic Sinclair Mitchell) but movement and mood of trees/vines and creatures.

puppets

Puppet and Mask Design by Bob Flanagan utilizes a variety of styles all of which manage to coexist in a fantastic realm, delivering constant surprise and delight. These are some of the best I’ve seen since the work of Julie Taymor.

Ryan Rumery & M. Florian Staab create Sound Design and Music which buoys atmosphere and elicits shuddering anticipation.

Antonia Ford-Roberts and Whitney Locher imagine flora costuming that almost disappears into the set. The Witch Doctor appears authentic. Jones’ costume is just right. Charlie Corcoran’s Set Design as effectively lit by Brian Nason brings the jungle to animated life.

An experimental play one might call exemplary of Magical Realism – a term coined long after the work’s inception, 1920’s The Emperor Jones  signaled the first popular success of playwright Eugene O’Neill. Unlike anything else the iconic author had written, the piece appears to have been inspired by his political views on the U.S. “imperialist” occupation of Haiti (beginning in 1915, but subsequent to the drama’s setting) and influenced by inbred Catholicism (wages of sin) as well as intimate knowledge of personal (familial) demons.

The Irish Repertory Theatre’s muscular interpretation is not to be missed.

The rest of a remarkable company: William Bellamy, Carl Hendrick Louis, Angel Moore, Reggie Talley

Photos by Carol Rosegg
Opening Obi Abili

Irish Repertory Theatre presents
The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill
Directed by Ciaran O’Reilly
Irish Repertory Theatre
132 West 22nd Street
Through April 23, 2017

Shining City – Unmoored in A Crowded City

06/10/2016

In essence, Shining City (last seen here on Broadway in 2006), is another of playwright Conor McPherson’s ghost stories. This one, however, alludes not only an “actual” spirit, but city lives lived, despite liaisons, without roots or attachments, adrift in limbo.

Still living with unopened cartons, fledgling therapist Ian (Billy Carter) welcomes his first patient with professionalism that covers insecurity.  John (Matthew Broderick) evidently tried to get an appointment with a psychiatrist recommended by his doctor, but waiting time was four months. We never learn how he found Ian. John’s problem, emerging in the fits and starts of an otherwise, one suspects, taciturn man, is that his wife Mari is appearing in the house weeks after she died in a particularly grisly car crash. The patient is so badly shaken, he’s moved into a B & B.

Lisa Dwan, Billy Carter

John and Mari barely communicated when she was alive. He had no idea she was out the night she died or where she was going. If they’d only communicated. If they’d only been able to have children. Is she now trying to punish her husband or to tell him something?

Ian is –surprise!- visited by Neasa (Lisa Dwan) the mother of his baby. Despite an argument, oblivious to exit statements, she expected him home days ago. Stuck in his brother’s house, life’s become ostracized hell. We learn some of Ian’s backstory, viable reasons for his feeling troubled. He will, he promises, be responsible.

Next we look in on the therapist one night when he’s picked up Laurence (James Russell) in a park. Homeless, in debt, and also a father, the man is reduced to selling himself in order to be able to go back to temporary digs. This is Ian’s awkward first time with a man. It doesn’t turn out as planned.

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Billy Carter and James Russell; Billy Carter

Furniture is moved, cartons packed. Ian is once again moving. John returns for a last visit. Both his and Ian’s lives have radically changed. Or have they?

McPherson’s episodic piece is fatalistic. These are four characters without real homes, in search of connection, who “affiliate” but seem not to bond. Loneliness in a crowd. Less poignant than numb. Uncomfortably familiar. Even the building’s door buzzer never gets fixed.

Director Ciaran O’Reilly makes us feel like voyeurs. Even the playwright’s signature, fragmented dialogue arrives authentic. Each actor wears anxiety and disassociation a bit differently; the sum may make you squirm. Raised voices are never gratuitous. In fact, tensions often show themselves in small ways like John’s hand upon the couch arm, a single finger twitching or Laurence’s sudden, yet ambivalent move towards John. Ian’s unwitting smiles at some of what John tells him are priceless.

Billy Carter (Ian) is an onstage natural. The actor uses his character’s feelings to color every word and move or lack thereof rather than demonstrate them. He is here, palpably, a man shut off from himself as well as the world.

Matthew Broderick (John) begins a victim of our familiarity. It takes awhile to accept his pronounced Irish accent. Drawn sympathetically to the turbulence that drives him, however, we become as accustomed to it as we do to his self-flagellating guilt. Broderick is a master of hesitant, confused delivery. His everyman persona serves the role. John could be your friend, your neighbor.

An unnerving play.

Charlie Corcoran’s Set is appropriately utilitarian and minimal with details reflecting an old building.

The newly renovated Irish Repertory Theater is more comfortable, more accessible, and more spacious. A venerable and worthy institution begins another act like a phoenix rising from plaster and sawdust.

Photos by Carol Rosegg
Opening: Matthew Broderick, Billy Carter

Shining City by Conor McPherson
Directed by Ciaran O’Reilly
Irish Repertory Theatre
132 West 22nd Street
Through July 3, 2016

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