GOTCHA! Holiday happiness caught on stage. |
Christmas in Lisnacoo involves an avenging Santa, wanton women, and, above all, an impressive amount of spirits — both the kind in bottles and the kind within the lively Irish. The seasonal offering of the American Irish Repertory Ensemble is a series of loosely connected vignettes called A Christmas in Kerry. Scripted by local playwright Clare Melley Smith, it is a world-premiere dramatization of the local-colorful Christmas goings-on in a small, fictional Kerry town, inspired by short stories originally by renowned Irish writer John B. Keane. By turns bawdy and uplifting, Kerry is a vivid ensemble piece, directed by Tony Reilly for the American Irish Repertory Ensemble.
Our host and guide to Lisnacoo’s small-town yuletide shenanigans is Mocky Fondoo (Tony Reilly), erstwhile bicycle postman and de facto community counselor of the village. Through the episodic anecdotes of Mocky, and a series of letters between him and other acquaintances, we’re granted an intimate and affectionate portrait of his ken’s holiday customs, quirks, and yearnings. There’s the continuing saga of Frank O’Looney (Ian Carlsen), a young postal protégé of Mocky now making his first rounds on his own (and encountering the dangers of, among other things, idle women who love a good uniform). Then there are hardware merchant Tom Winter and young Julie Josie (Nate Amadon and the electric Janice Gardner), who are each coaxed by promises of alcohol into playing Santa, with romantic results. Old Mary and Martin Scrubble (Janet Lynch and David Butler) are as sanguine a couple as you can find 364 days a year, but come Christmas they resort to insults scurvy enough to draw the whole village in to watch. And lusty widow Gracie Goddy (Susan Reilly, having a fine, campy time) has gone to the trouble of sending herself registered mail in order to get Mocky through the front door and, she hopes, farther.
Although these and many more scenes are short and sweetly simple, Kerry is hardly light work for its actors. Most of Reilly’s excellent ensemble each play more than four different — and highly idiosyncratic — characters, and all maintain a nimble pace in vaulting through these witty anecdotes. Carlsen is a particularly valuable and versatile member of the ensemble, switching between a hyperbolic Scot on vacation in Malta, a dirty political thug in a dark coat, and the hapless young postman O’Looney, among several others, with addictive timing and nuance. When his O’Looney “writes” to Mocky of an early encounter with the dangerous woman on his postal route (“She asked me if I liked griddle bread, and I said I loved it,”) his voice is as deliciously, innocently libidinous as butter in the crannies. He’s often well-paired with Amadon, who brings an ingenuous charm and slow, nearly beatific smile to several of his characters. Together, the two young men have a great buddy scene as drunken “Wren Boys,” traditional drummer/singers who fumblingly entertain the townsfolk on St. Stephen’s Day.
Another fun turn comes from David Butler and Janet Lynch as the Scrubbles, with their escalating ire. Butler has a mighty bellow that also serves him well as Hector Fitzpitter, an out-of-work thespian-turned-Santa-turned-avenger-of-downtrodden-women-and-children. Lynch has a curiously ageless quality that allows her to be equally engrossing as a little girl and an ornery old woman sure that Mocky is hoarding her Christmas cards. Her delivery is luxuriously sly and musical, and she plays a great fiddle, too. And as Mocky, he who must endure much and redeem even more, Reilly is a solid, sympathetic presence whose only excesses are in the neat flourishes with which he steers his bicycle on and off stage. He’s an equally restrained navigator of Kerry’s crucial line between the raucous and the heart-warming. As our guide through the village’s stories and characters, he has an important role in making sure we’re not overwhelmed with too much of either the unsavory or the sweet.
In the hands of Reilly — both as Mocky and as director — Kerry is a rousing antidote to all that can get meaninglessly maudlin around the holiday season. Instead of bland, unthinking sentimentalism, we’re treated to a community’s lively lusts and depravities, tempered by goodwill and redemption. It’s that balance that gives it such a potent spirit. AIRE’s holiday offering is both as strong and as warming as the Irish beverage that its characters so robustly celebrate.
A CHRISTMAS IN KERRY | Portland Performing Arts Center’s Studio Theater, 25A Forest Ave, Portland | Through December 10 | 207.799.5327
