Review: AN IRISH CAROL at The Keegan Theatre

An Irish Carol -- the Keegan Theatre's holiday crowd pleaser by Matthew J. Keenan, now in its 12th year -- is a moody set piece with an inspired premise: a Dickensian Christmas reckoning set in a contemporary Irish bar. It has an evocative set, fine acting, tart dialogue, and it unfolds a bittersweet backstory.

There's just one problem: It's only half a play.

Not literally, of course. The 90-minute intermissionless drama has an unconvincing tagged on resolution of sorts. But fundamentally, it carefully sets up its pins, then fails to roll the ball. What a wasted opportunity.

Why not tighten what's there into a tense hour and then develop the updated Dickensian notion into a second act? That needn't be in a retro floating-ghouls way, although it could be. Floating ghouls are underrated. It could be in a naturalistic Joycean spirits mode with yesterdays haunting tomorrows. It could be a wry twist on expectations, with regrets somersaulting into farce. It could become a musical with an Irish folk bar band and singing, dancing specters. (Now that I think about it, that's what I'd hope for since Keegan has extensive experience and know-how with intimate musicals.)

It could go so many ways -- but instead it sort of goes nowhere.

That's a shame, because there's a lot right with what's there. Kevin Adams is excellent as David Diskin, the Scrooge-ish pub owner in 2008 recessionary Dublin. He's an old-school pocket-watched pinstriped smoldering cauldron of resentment and bitterness. He doesn't talk much between surly shot-glass sips but when he does you know it'll be foul and mean. And when he's silent he's even scarier. His glare sends confidence-deflating beams straight into your withering soul. It's no wonder the pub he inherited from his Pa has only a few customers.

But memorable customers they are. Frank (Timothy H. Lynch) is an ol' friendly, flirty barfly with simmering sunken eyes lost in a whisky-hued memory hole. Jim (David Jourdan) is a stout, amiable neighborhood hail fellow well pinted. He'll pick up your spirits and maybe your tab. The Bob Cratchit equivalent is Bartek, a young Polish immigrant bartender who tries to see the best in people, even his miserable crank of a boss. An alienated brother of David, an estranged friend, a former employee and his fiancee, and some American tourists waft in from the snowy outdoors only to flee the even-frostier air emanating from David.

Director Mark A. Rhea imbues these proceedings with a hard-boiled gravitas. And the understated approach generally works well, though the pace could be tightened up considerably. David's pained reading of a letter from a lost love is a particularly affecting silent sequence.

However, David's predictable subsequent turn toward the Christmas light, and a sudden switch in clothing tastes, rings very hollow. Dickens earned such moments, but this script doesn't. It could, though, if developed, and I hope Keegan will do so.

Yes, I know, audiences seem to love the half a play that's there, and I presume -- indeed I fervently hope -- that it is a Christmas cash cow for Keegan. Lord knows any theater that survived the pandemic lockdown deserves all the grace and matching grants it can muster. So the crass question the theater might ask itself is whether a bigger, better version of An Irish Carol could be even more satisfying, both commercially and artistically. I'd bet on Yes.

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Run time: 90 minutes with no intermission

Photograph of Kevin Adams as David Diskin by Cameron Whitman Photography, courtesy of the Keegan Theatre

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