Review: BELFAST GIRLS at Fishtank Theatre

Running through April 29, is a handsomely mounted production of Irish playwright Jacki McCarrick's "Belfast Girls" presented by Fishtank Theatre at the tiny La Esquina Theater. A cast of eight young women recalls the Earl Grey "Orphan Immigrant Scheme" which facilitated the resettlement of around 4100 young women from famine torn Ireland to the new colony of Australia between 1848 and 1851.

Like many well-intended government programs, this one went seriously awry in the execution. The Minister for the Colonies was a man named Earl Grey. At the same point in time, the Irish potato crop failed, Irish workhouses overflowed, and the male-female balance in distant Australia remained seriously out of whack. A previous notion to populate the island continent with convicted felons sixty years earlier had sent about 4000 men and only 750 women to the bottom of the earth.

It made sense to offer free transportation to Australia to girls between 14 and 20 years old of good character and provide them the basics for a new life in a new land. Unfortunately, another government agency closer to the potential immigrants saw all this as an opportunity to offload many of the women who they saw as problem children. A blind eye overlooked forged papers and sketchy pasts.

"Belfast Girls" is a character study of five such immigrants as they make the three-month sailing ship journey near the end of the program in 1850. All these women are hiding secrets that slowly emerge shipboard. To one degree or another, none or almost none, of the characters qualified for the transport scheme as originally envisioned. The centuries long and many meters deep resentment between the Irish Catholic and Protestant English of Ireland is on full display. The women, while sad to be leaving Ireland, mainly want a chance to escape to a fresh opportunity.

Judith Noone (Rasheedat Badejo) is the product of a union of an Irish seaman and a Jamaican woman. She has been raised in Ireland, is bright, ambitious, and a natural leader, but has been reduced by circumstances in a mainly homogenous Ireland to the sex trade. She hopes to become a teacher in Australia.

Mysterious Molly Durcan (Lindsay Lillig) is discovered to be descended from the Protestant landowner class. Although naïve to the ways of the world, she is book smart and aware of movements that will allow women to achieve a measure of equality. She is aware of the writings of Karl Marx. Her goal is to become a performer in her new country and campaign for suffrage. It turns out she has taken the name of a Catholic friend who has died in her arms of starvation because of fear that the Catholic girls will take out her privileged ancestry on her. She is correct.

Hanna Gibney (Annie Kalakurka) and Ellen Clark (Kaitlan Gould) are oil and water. One is a scullery worker on the ship. The other is described as a songbird, but they seem to be forever scuffling.

Last and probably saddest is country girl Sarah Jane Wylie (Erdin Schultz-Bever). She is represented as someone who is traveling to meet her brother already in Australia. He turns out to be serving time in an Australian prison. A newspaper article in her possession shows conditions in their new world are not so terribly different from the one the women have left behind.

One description of the show ruminates on how none of these people really want to emigrate, but they see no other choices. They blame the colonial office, officials in Ireland, the church, and themselves. They end hoping for better days in the blinding sun down under.

Directed by Fishtank Theatre founder Heidi Van, "Belfast Women" expresses an admitted anger about the world from the playwright. The two level set accurately depicts both the feel of the deck and the darkened bowels of a mid-nineteenth century sailing ship. It is well constructed for its purpose. A moving projection gives us the impression of the seas moving on by.

The play runs well over two hours including intermission and keeps your attention despite the length. This is an indication of the care taken by the director and the commitment of the actors. The play is done in dialect that is difficult for American ears, but gets easier as we used to the characters.

"Belfast Girls" continues through April 29th. Tickets are available at www.firstanktheatre.com. Le Esquina is located at 1000 W 25th Street in Kansas City.

Photos courtesy of Fishtank Theatre and Brian Paulette

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