Review: Arizona Theatre Company Presents OUTSIDE MULLINGAR ~ Magnificent!

If I saw nothing else this season, Arizona Theatre Company's current production of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR would be enough to satisfy my soul.

In his triumphant debut as the company's new Artistic Director, David Ivers has magnified John Patrick Shanley's Tony-nominated opus on love and birthright into a honey-sweet masterpiece of stagecraft. In so doing, he has stamped his signature as a worthy successor to the brilliant David Ira Goldstein and revealed his own distinctive artistic vision.

The eloquence and vitality of Shanley's words ~ the lilting and feisty brogue ~ flow strong out of the mouths of a powerhouse cast ~ John Hutton, Larry Bull, Robynn Rodriguez, and Cassandra Bissell ~ like a swelling river, carrying on its waves a bounty of emotions.

In the confines of a farmhouse kitchen in rural Ireland, a father (Hutton) doubts the steadfastness and grit of his son (Bull) to sustain the land of their lineage. For the want of a patch of earth occupied by an inconvenient gate, he'd sell it off to an American nephew. But, in the course of a visit by his newly widowed neighbor (Rodriguez), he learns that it's her daughter (Bissell) who owns it and is unlikely to part with it for reason of a long-standing grudge.

There's poetry, wit, wisdom, and warmth in what ensues as long-withheld feelings of love are revealed ~ those between a da and his son and between two starcrossed souls who yearn silently for fulfillment. There's a magicality, so Irish in essence, that imbues OUTSIDE MULLINGAR with a mix of emotions that will surely yield a proper amount of laughter and tears.

What a glorious cast has been assembled to realize the dimensions of this play!

John Hutton is a roaring bundle of laughs as the crusty and stubborn Tony Reilly. Larry Bull, as Anthony Reilly, renders a moving portrait of a quiet and vulnerable man with a raging heart. When the two match up against each other ~ and when their mutual devotion is manifested ~ the chemistry is palpable.

Cassandra Bissell is magnificent and magnetic as Rosemary Muldoon, as fearless and determined a woman as the Irish landscape may produce. In more ways than one, she has in her grasp the ring of truth. Her interactions with Bull are pure gold.

Robynn Rodriguez as Aoife Muldoon epitomizes the weeping widow and plays the perfect bridge between Bull's bee and Rosemary's swan.

Scott Davis's sets, elegant in their simplicity and efficiency, and Xavier Pierce's lighting evoke the moods that befit the stark and promising countryside of this story. Whether in a farmhouse, a barn, or the fields, there's an air of impending possibility between the sky and the earth and beyond the gloom that they convey.

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR runs through March 4th at the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix.

Photo credit to Tim Fuller

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