Luck of the Irish **

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Ownership of a house in a formerly all-white neighborhood is the focus of a play that takes place in two time frames -- the present and 50 years ago. That may sound like "Clybourne Park II," but it turns out to be something quite different. Playwright Kirsten Greenidge and director Rebecca Taichman, who had a solid success together with "Milk Like Sugar" at Playwrights Horizons in 2011 are teamed once again in this latest production of LCT3 at the Claire Tow Theater. Did lightning strike twice? Not quite. The new play lacks the clear focus and intensity of their earlier collaboration. Two sisters, the married Hannah (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and her single sister Nessa (Carra Patterson) have inherited the home which their recently deceased grandparents Rex (Victor Williams) and Lucy (Eisa Davis) Taylor purchased 50 years back. A young impoverished Irish Catholic couple Joe (Dashiell Eaves) and Patty Ann (Amanda Quaid) Donovan are enlisted as "ghost buyers" who, for a fee, are to make the purchase and then sign the title over to the Taylors. In what seemed to me an implausible development, the Taylors move into the home before the title has been signed over to them. Hannah and her laid-back husband Rich (Frank Harts) are now living in the house with their unseen son Miles, who has ADHD, and whose problems at school Hannah sees as racially based. She stubbornly wants to keep the house although her sister wants to sell it. Out of the blue, the elderly Mr. Donovan (now played by Robert Hogan) shows up to tell the sisters that the title was never signed over to their grandparents and his wife now wants the house. Eventually, his wife (now played by Jenny O'Hara) shows up, title in hand. I won't say more about the outcome. The first act is burdened with too much shouting -- parents shouting at misbehaving children, shouting spouses, shouting siblings. The dialog between shouts is often banal. However, this is one of the rare plays that improves in the second act. There is a lovely scene between Lucy and Joe and a powerful scene between Lucy and Patty Ann. The elderly Patty Ann has a fine speech near the end. Surprisingly, at least for me, the Donovans -- both the young and old versions -- came across as more sympathetic than any of the black characters. Lucy is an intriguing creation -- beautiful, refined, well-traveled, well-read and well-dressed (and superbly played by Davis), but is too much of a stereotype turned inside out. Joe, as portrayed by both Eaves and Hogan, had more humanity than all the others. There were a few things that puzzled me. Why does the playwright bring up the mysterious deal broker John, whom we never meet and whose existence seemed superfluous? Why have the sisters been raised by their grandparents? Mimi Lien, whose set for "Dance and the Railroad" I greatly admired, has created another attractive minimalist set. Oana Botez's costumes, especially for Lucy, are a treat. Taichman's direction is fluid and assured. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Rutherford & Son **

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The Mint Theater fills an important niche in New York theatrical life by reviving plays that have either been lost or forgotten. Their latest production is this family drama by Githa Sowerby, a smash hit in London in 1912, when women playwrights were rarely heard from. John Rutherford (Robert Hogan) is head of a large glassworks in the north of England. His tyrannical behavior has, to a greater or lesser extent, ruined the lives of his three adult children -- John Jr. (Eli James), who had run off and married a London shopgirl Mary (Allison McLemore), and has reluctantly returned home upon the birth of their child; Richard (James Patrick Nelson), a well-meaning but ineffectual priest; and Janet (Sara Surrey), an embittered 37-year-old who has begun a secret affair with the trusted plant manager Martin (David Van Pelt). John Sr.'s dour sister Ann (Sandra Shipley) completes this loveless household. Dale Soules has a juicy part as the mother of a plant worker whom Rutherford has fired. When John Jr. claims to have invented a manufacturing process that could save the glassworks and tries to sell it to his father, all the family strains reach the breaking point. The socioeconomic tensions of the period add to the drama. The quality of the acting varies widely: Surrey makes a strong Janet, but James is consistently overwrought and declamatory as John Jr. A word about the accents: I question whether the authenticity gained by trying (with varying degrees of success) to imitate a regional accent, in this case Geordie,  justifies the loss of comprehensibility it entails, particularly when the play is performed outside England. I also wonder why the Mint has seen fit to revive this play for the second time in ten years with the same director (Richard Corley), set designer (Vicki R. Davis), costume designer (Charlotte Palmer-Lane) and three of the same actors. All in all, it makes for an interesting, but longish evening. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes including two intermissions.