REVIEW: 'Inishmaan' High Comedy, Powerful Drama at Baltimore's Everyman

 I have to confess that the review you are currently reading is really the second one I've written for The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Everyman Theatre. It isn't that the first one was bad or any less glowing, its just that this play has really stuck with me – when I finally managed to drift off last night, I even dreamed about it. And as I thought about it during my commute, I decided to start from scratch. Before you continue reading, you should use the information above to secure a ticket to this nearly sold out show before there aren't any left!

 Let me first heap praise on Everyman's use of its space, located in the bottom of a building. The stage is small, but you'd never know it from the expert use of it. The rustic, suggestive, and easily changed set pieces, designed by Daniel Ettinger, along with a stunning background that all at once suggests the sea, the bleak terrain of this island in Ireland, and the blandness of life there come together to create a vivid world of a time gone by. Everything about the design of this production (lighting by Michael Kilma, costumes by Kathleen Geldard, sound by Chas Marsh and props by Liza Davies) and authenticity (crisp, clear dialect coaching by Nancy Krebs) comes together in such a satisfyingly full way that one is completely transported back to this tiny Irish village circa 1934.

 

  Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman, The Beauty Queen of Leenane)'s biting, very funny, and poetic script give this production an almost fairy tale (fractured though it may be) quality. But these are not people you'd necessarily want to spend much more time with, let alone live with. No, this play might easily have been called "The Broken People of Inishmaan". Every character is in some way broken: physically (Auntie Eileen's bad arm, CrippleBilly of the title), broken hearted (BabbyBobby the widower), broken morally (Helen, the town harlot), and just plain broke (Johnnypateenmike, the town gossip who gets paid in food and goods per news story that he goes door to door with).

 The play opens and closes in the town store, with the setting of groceries on a shelf. The first scene, that stocking of shelves and the accompanying dialogue serves to create an atmosphere of tedium and small town boredom. My first reaction was "please let this pick up in pace soon." But upon reflection of the whole piece, it seems not only appropriate for really setting the play, but it serves as a neat counterpoint to the final scene where that stocking of shelves by another character has a completely different significance, and is anything but tedious. (I hesitate to say more, for I don't want to give anything away for future patrons.) As the play progresses and this tight community is exposed warts and all, one finds people at a loss, but firmly rooted to their place. Their days are spent telling each other stories, most of which are untrue, and are alternately funny and cruel. The fervor of these stories reaches fever pitch when the biggest news to hit Inishmaan comes to pass: an American filmmaker is coming to a neighboring island to make a movie about life there. The younger generation gets a boat to the island to seek perhaps fame and fortune, and all but one return to the island disappointed. It is CrippleBilly, the least likely of the bunch, who gets invited to go to Hollywood for a screen test.  But this is an island of storytellers and liars, and after much debate and conjecture, the truth about Billy's disappearance comes out, and more and more truths are made public. The beauty of the play is that the truths are as compelling as the lies. You are guessing until the last second of the play.

 Much of the success at making this tale hilariously funny, compelling, and sad all at once must be attributed to the mostly magnificent cast, and a director (Donald Hicken) who wisely gives his cast enough space to explore the over the top nature of these people, but knows how to rein them in enough to let the undercurrents and subtext do the emotional work. In lesser hands, this could easily have become almost a sitcom - all fun, no heart.

 

As cliché as spinster aunts could be, Helen Hedman and Rosemary Knower give their characters, Kate and Eileen just the right combination of strength, wit, knowledge and eccentricity. So beautifully played by Hedman, Eileen's lapse into conversing with a stone when she's depressed seems so real you almost expect that she's right – the stone can talk. Similarly, Knower plays Kate with such strength that when faced with her biggest fear, losing a loved one, her pain and anger are palpable.

Wil Love, making his Everyman debut as gossip Johnnypateenmike, is a real find here. He imbues the character with equal measures of humor, warmth, and a downright annoying quality that one alternately hates him and can't imagine life there without him. It is his job to really get the action going, and Love does so with great timing. The brooding anger that bubbles close to the surface of Whalen J. Laurence's Babbybobby comes menacingly to the surface twice in the play, once to comedic effect and once in a violent way, and in both cases, Laurence delivers. In the smaller roles of the Doctor with a secret (Bruce R. Nelson), and Mammy, Johnnypateenmike's ancient mother (Baltimore theatre legend Vivienne Shub), both light up the stage, offering nicely nuanced, believable performances. Shub is priceless as the mother slowly being pickled by her own son who feeds her as much liquor as she can swallow, and her eyes light up with every drop.

In the challenging role of Helen, critically acclaimed actress Megan Anderson creates an amazingly complete character. Every movement of her body, every tick of her voice, every slow, wide-eyed look on her face makes what could have easily been a one dimensional character complex, and both repulsive and loveable. Every moment she is onstage the passion and fire of the whole piece gets kicked up a notch. As her brother, Bartley, Andrew Wassenich is both funny and touching as a simple guy who wants nothing more than to have a few nice sweets in his pocket and a chance to see the world (his "brokenness" is also pretty funny, as his sister takes great pleasure in braking eggs over his head). My only qualm about his performance might simply be a casting choice. Is this character an adult with a simple slowness or retardation or is he really supposed to be played by a 14 year-old? Either way, the character works, and Wassenich's performance is so good and honest, it doesn't matter.

Making his Everyman debut as the title character, James Flanagan has all the right moves. He plays the physicality of a sickly cripple excellently, even during scene changes he limps and coughs. And he says all of the lines just right. What he lacks is in the portrayal of the subtext, and in this company, that really sticks out. There are several times when you know you are supposed to really feel and be touched by Billy, such as when he pleads with folks not to call him Cripple, just Billy. The feeling there, though is flat. Similarly, in his final scene with Helen (I'll try not to give much away here) I am certain you are meant to feel a sense of happiness and relief for Billy, but you are more struck by the effect all of it has on Helen instead. And in the final tableau, a detail is revealed about Billy that should probably bring a tear to the eye, instead I found myself thinking, "Hmmm, so he wasn't lying." Perhaps if the rest of the cast wasn't so expert at creating such layered performances, revealing basically good, if stunted townsfolk, his less dimensional portrayal would be less noticeable. Even still, he does not detract anything from the overall production, and you may think I'm splitting hairs.

Part of a trilogy of plays, one hopes that Everyman might consider producing the other two. But for now, The Cripple of Inishmaan more than satisfies. Do not miss this production!

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