Review: THE AULD FELLA - Faded Royalty of a Legendary Playhouse

We can only imagine what it was like to sit in the Theatre Royal, the legendary Dublin playhouse where audiences 4,000-strong showed up to see the world's most famous variety acts. In between drags of her cigarette, Judy Garland sent strains of Somewhere Over the Rainbow from her dressing-room window. Bob Hope, vaudevillian extraordinaire, referred to it as the "magnificent garage".

There are signs of its decline in Michael Glenn Murphy's new play. It's 1961 and a teenage boy (Craig Connelly) walks into the dressing room of his drag queen-father, inspecting the red dress and lipstick. On the surface, this has the signs of a liberal-thinking society. Murphy's dame, beautifully made-up and strapped into a jutting corset, is heartbroken to discover that the youth has been mitching school, running off instead to play snooker. This suggests a naivety: the variety act is caught up in escapism to realise the brutal classroom teachings of the Christian brothers.

There's a lot of fun in the first act as the old theatre is imagined. Murphy's pro sorts through low rated circus acts on a night when an escaped cobra is wreaking havoc. In a time when stage stars are being poached by cinema, the alternatives are grim. "Do you think they'll give us a job in the straight theatre down the road?", he quips, referring to the Abbey Theatre.

What intrigues is the play's interest in the vocabulary of vaudeville itself. A clown character is represented by a mannequin that is manipulated and voiced by the actors. Murphy amps himself up as if performing gags in the old music hall. Connelly, however, is kept to the nuances of realism.

The latter mode is not as interesting, and unfortunately that's what becomes dominant as this father-son drama unfolds. The action is taut under Karl Quinn's direction, and while some of Murphy's precious descriptions glisten like pearls, his play starts to go in circles. Even royalty fades eventually.

The Auld Fella runs at Bewley's Cafe Theatre at Powerscourt until 17 Sept. For more information and tickets, see the Fringe website.