PLAY: "The Devil's Disciple"

Photo/Carol Rosegg

The original production of George Bernard Shaw's revolutionary play, The Devil's Disciple (1897), had a featured cast larger than 33 in number, and spoke out with a wit and truth strong enough to make critics of the time agree it was "novel to the verge of audacious eccentricity." To mount it on the small Irish Rep stage, Tony Walton has condensed the play down to eleven main parts and nine actors, and in doing so has streamlined the action (save for a expository first scene) and focused on the hypocrisy that makes this play so endearing (albeit more than a little redundant).

To begin with, Shaw focuses on the strict and Puritan rule of Mrs. Dudgeon (Darcy Pulliam), a shrill housekeeper who never ceases to complain about having to care for her uncle's bastard, Essie (Cristin Milioti), let alone her own two "good-for-nothing" children. "Let her hear," she shouts at her well-behaved but doltish son, Christy (an eager and pleasing Craig Pattison). "People who fear God don't fear to give the devil's work its right name!" This sets up the historical values of the time (1777) and place (New Hampshire), although Shaw quickly goes about mocking these values by portraying Mrs. Dudgeon as an unflinchingly cold woman (she's the only one in the house who never seems to need to warm herself by the fire). He's also gives balance to the bitter Mrs. Dudgeon by making the minister, Anthony Anderson (a delightful Curzon Dobell) into a thoughtful rebel, and by turning the antihero, roguish and well-named Dick Dudgeon (the captivating Lorenzo Pisoni) into the unlikeliest of heroes.

Shaw spends his first act, then, dealing with the reversal of roles: the set roles that we imagine for Anthony and Dick are quickly reversed, with Dick bravely marching to the English gallows in Anthony's stead, and Anthony appearing to flee the scene with the cry "Minister be damned!" As for the second, the Shaw applies his grand wit to the concepts of martyrdom ("It is the only way a person can become famous without ability"), gentlemanly contradiction ("If we should have the misfortune to hang you, we shall do so as a mere matter of political necessity and military duty, without any personal ill-feeling"), and the laughable nature of the English army, as evinced by a clash between the thoughtful General Burgoyne (John Windsor-Cunningham) and the aggressive Major Swindon (Robert Sedgwick). Even as the noose is wrapped around his neck, Dick cannot resist mocking the proceedings.

Another plot running through the show is that of the minister's wife, Judith (Jenny Fellner), who deals with the baggage of Shaw's era: "I am only a woman, I can do nothing," she exclaims. After spending half the play despising Dick for no reason other than his reputation, she spends the rest of it trying to save his life, and thereby proving another of Shaw's points: "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent toward them: that's the essence of inhumanity.. . . If you watch people carefully you'll be surprised to find how like hate is to love." This is what we see in the coolness of the military and in the iciness bestowed by an ill reputation (those who won't give Dick the time of day).

All told, The Devil's Disciple is a very funny play, but one which doesn't really channel Shaw's wit to his best effect. The message is limited, and the second act focuses too narrowly on insulting the poor marksmanship of British forces (ironically, with precise aim of his own). What's to be gleaned from this play, then, are the excellently balanced performances of Dobell and Pisoni, who make Anthony and Dick into the best of "enemies," as well as the moral message that religiousness is not a measure of good, but rather of selfishness, and that true good can only be measured by actions that so bestow it, be them by the self-proclaimed devil's disciple, or by a gun-toting minister.

PLAY: "Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer"

It took a long time for me to warm up to Aidan Dooley's portrayal of Tom Crean, one of the unsung "heroes" of Ireland (this, assuming that there is something heroic about plunging into the unknown whiteness of the Antarctic not once, not twice, but three times). Ironically, it was at Crean's coldest moment--the approximately 40-mile solo trek through the snow, blizzard at his back, that he undertook to save his companions--that warmed me to the survivalist narrative. I can't say, either, that Dooley oversold the role: his wild gesticulation and shrill, incredulous commentary at his own accomplishments seem a bit hyperbolic, but not any less believable. What I can say is that Dooley's writing was held back by his own slurring, stumbling performance in the second act: short of that, I was on the edge of my seat at the odds-defying account of an 800-mile voyage with Captain Shackleton (all undertaken in a tiny, wooden rescue boat), not to mention the pitch-dark slide down the side of an icy mountain, nor the depraved conditions of their various camps. There are a few anachronisms that Dooley should remove ("like banshees on a roller coaster"), and the show would be better as a 90-minute one-act, but Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer is pretty arresting stuff.

PLAY: "Defender of the Faith"

Is there any creature more hated than the rat? In Stuart Carolan’s play, Defender of the Faith, the dynamics of a stereotypical Northern Irish family (bullying father, destructive son, crazy mother) are glossed over to make room for a short thriller about trust in the IRA. Thankfully, the first two-thirds of the 90-minute play eschew the pretension of genre and naturally depict the terse lives of a family of cow-herders. An enemy informer is suspected of hiding among them, and when a sinister IRA investigator arrives on the scene, his violent interrogations slowly chip away at the family’s loyalty to one another.

Ciarán O’Reilly is well suited for realism: he keeps his actors busy with the physical chores and labors of life first, while their lines come next. A few of the actors still have trouble with the accent, but barring that, the scenes are excellently paced. Slip-ups are never as conspicuous in an ensemble piece, and any slack is more than compensated for by David Lansbury and Peter Rogan, who play the tout-hunter and the suspected tout. Lansbury plays his Bible-quoting, villainous investigator with such humanity that we often forget he’s been sent to the farm to make an example of someone.

Meanwhile, Rogan’s portrayal of Barney, an elderly farmhand with a strong moral compass and 20 years of loyalty, makes him a fixed source of strength. The inevitable struggle between father and son (Anto Nolan and Luke Kirby) is staged well, and the role-reversal shows the range of both actors. Nolan’s role as the rotund, priggish father is probably the play’s most clichéd, but he carries it off with a certain solemnity, acknowledging the character’s deep-seated self-deprecation. Kirby’s motivations are the least defined of the play, and his portrayal is often overtaken by the character’s frustration, but even this role fits with the overall feel of the show. Defender of the Faith is a natural slice of life, succinctly executed with a crisp story. Though there’s some stumbling at the end of the show, everything fits into the messy web of life itself.

[First posted to Show Business Weekly, 3/12]