The Ferryman

A

I was going to skip this London import by Jez Butterworth because I did not care for his much-praised 2011 play Jerusalem at all (https://gotham-playgoer.blogspot.com/2011/04/jerusalem.html). However, the reports from London were so enthusiastic that I relented and bought a ticket. I’m very glad I did. I found it so compelling that its three-plus hours absolutely flew by. The seamless blend of the personal with the political, the comic with the dramatic, the leisurely storytelling with the sudden shocks give it almost Shakespearean proportions. After a brief prologue set in Derry a day or two before the rest of the play, the action takes place in the oversized farmhouse kitchen of the Carney family in rural Northern Ireland. In addition to Quinn (Paddy Considine), Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly) and their seven children — JJ (Niall Wright), Michael (Fra Fee), Sheena (Carla Langley), Nunu (Brooklyn Shuck), Honor (Matilda Lawler), Mercy (Willow McCarthy) and infant Bobby (Annie Scarfuto). the household includes Quinn’s two aunts — acerbic Aunt Pat (Dearbhla Molloy) and befogged Aunt Maggie Far Away (Fionnula Flanagan) — and tippling Uncle Pat  (Mark Lambert) as well as Quinn’s sister-in-law Caitlin (Laura Donnelly) who moved in with her young son Oisin (Rob Malone) when her husband Seamus mysteriously disappeared ten years before. Tom Kettle (Justin Edwards), a developmentally challenged English foundling, lives in a cottage on the farm. We also meet Quinn’s cousins, the three Corcoran brothers — Shane (Tom Glynn-Carney), Diarmaid (Conor MacNeill) and Declan (Michael Quinton McArthur) —who are helping with the harvest, the parish priest Father Horrigan (Charles Dale) and an IRA bigwig Muldoon (Stuart Graham) with two henchmen (Dean Ashton and Glenn Spears). There are also a live goose and a rabbit. It is one of Butterworth’s great achievements that he makes almost every character a vivid, memorable presence. The plot revolves around the sudden appearance of Seamus’s body and the IRA’s ruthless attempt to assure that the Carney family does not publicly lay blame for his death on them. Fortunately for us, the playwright never hesitates to pause for a good tale, a dance or a song. The mostly British cast is so universally strong that I hesitate to single any one out for special mention. The scenic and costume design by Rob Howell is topnotch. Director Sam Mendes never lets our attention lag. The play is one of the major events of the season thus far. Running time: three hours 15 minutes including an intermission and a brief pause.

Outside Mullingar ***

If you are willing to turn off your critical faculties and yield to the skillful manipulations of a master, you can have a good time at John Patrick Shanley's new play at Manhattan Theatre Club. Not for nothing has it been called the Irish "Moonstruck." It too is a rather slight but enjoyable rom-com with a prickly couple at the center. Fortunately Anthony and Rosemary are played by Shanley veteran Brian F. O'Byrne and, in her Broadway debut, Debra Messing, who play well off each other and are joined by two wonderful actors, Peter Maloney and Dearbhla Molloy as Anthony's father and Rosemary's mother. The wisp of a plot involves a spiteful real estate transaction 30 years prior, the alienation between father and son, the loneliness of Irish farm life and a long-smoldering unrequited love. There are some fine set pieces that allow each actor to shine, but for me, a ludicrous revelation in the final scene undid some of the good will the play had earned. John Lee Beatty's set design is topnotch and Catherine Zuber's costumes are fine. Doug Hughes's direction is assured. Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission.