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The Weir
By Jana J. Monji
The Weir is not a musical, but the language of Conor McPherson has the soft
insistent lullaby of old acquaintances droning on, when the skittering
excitement of a strange female voice suddenly changes the composition.
Set in a black box of a bar designed by Rae Smith, barren of decorative
comforts and rather old, plain, and utilitarian, McPherson creates a small
community of men. This foursome are petty in their jealousies and set into a
deeply grooved rut of familiarity. In a city they might not have cared to
brush against each other socially, but in this small northern Irish town the
world is shrunk, cramming them together for lack of other company. They know
each other too well, or at least they think they do.
Yet McPherson's tale is one of discovery as fears are uncovered when the
men begin to tell ghost stories. The boastful Jack (Jim Norton), an old
confirmed bachelor who runs a garage, tells his tale to gain the attention
of Valerie (Michelle Fairley), a young, attractive woman from the city who
has just rented a house through Finbar (Dermot Crowley). Finbar has brought
her to the bar, perhaps to show off to the old bachelors that a successful
married man like himself can still interest a pretty woman, glamourously
from the city. Her presence also influences Jim (Kieran Ahern), a gentle,
slow-witted man burdened by an aging and ailing mother and working odd-jobs
to support them both. He also feels compelled to tell his own scary memory.
But the woman has her own tale of a haunting, crushingly horrific in its
emotional weight. She brings the weir or dam down and feelings come tumbling
out.
McPherson isn't really writing about spook stories. The rising monologues
of supernatural happenings slowly, almost imperceptibly, blend into a
surprising pattern of redemptive light.
This ensemble under the sensitive direction of Ian Rickson fill McPherson's
words with subtle meaning. Brendan Coyle's bartender has no ghost story, but
his every gesture and posture is meaningful and it's wonderful that
McPherson has trusted the actors and the audience enough to communicate
without words.
In this rural Irish town, as in many other places in the world, McPherson
tells us there are many frightening and unexplainable things--the greatest
of all being loneliness.
The Weir, Walter Kerr Theater, 219 W. 48th Street, New York.
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m. $60. (212) 239-6200.
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