Oct. 28--In the beginning of Abbie Spallen's dense 2009 drama "Strandline," now in its U.S. premiere at A Red Orchid Theatre, we learn of a man apparently drowned, off the coast of Northern Ireland.
A widow is mourning her loss, and three local women (and one teenage lad) have joined her in her Jameson-soaked wake. But the evening does not proceed along the usual lines. The bereaved, a successful textile artist by trade -- her loom is in the corner of Harry Feiner's rather perplexing setting -- has a lot of questions to ask these women about the life and dealings of her now-dead husband. This is to be a night of boozy truth-telling, it seems, a kind of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" sans the gents and staged above the sea.
So why, given that provocative scenario, is this play such a tough slog in A Red Orchid's intimate theater? Why is it so boring to watch? At one point late in the sedentary Act 1 -- Act 2 perks up just a wee bit -- I looked around the theater and saw body after body sunk down in a seat, face after face off in its own world. If outward signs could be believed, very few were gripped by the events in this atrophied border town.
The main problem is that director JR Sullivan's heavy-handed production does not punch out Spallen's storytelling. That takes a bit of doing, frankly, in a meandering and overstuffed script that deals with a plethora of fascinating themes -- most notably, the complexities of life in a country that, half a generation ago, was riven with open warfare but that now is exploring its own political and economic identity.
A second problem is that the production is never actually funny, even though Spallen has built in some dark humor as crucial relief. A third problem is that the women come across here as relentlessly awful, and few of us wish to spend time with awful people, unless we're told the how and the why of their getting that way.
Clearly, Spallen is interested in economic inequality and the kinds of (perhaps nefarious) entrepreneurial doings that tend to afflict the first peaceful years of any country where the economy was long stymied by civil war. The central widow, Mairin (Kirsten Fitzgerald) is intended to be a wealthy and successful woman and thus an outsider, although this production does not sufficiently point up that inequality. You can see the influence of such Irish writers as Conor McPherson (a master of the confessional) and Martin McDonagh, whose love of eccentric characters and taste for dark, even diabolic, rural humor Spallen clearly shares.
The main fights are between Mairin and a woman named Clodagh (Dado), a relentlessly aggressive and wholly invulnerable local deal-maker, or so she comes off here. Those two battle it out alongside Eileen (Natalie West), who spends much of the play asleep, even after breadsticks are stuck in her nostrils, and Triona (Meg Warner), Mairin's stepdaughter and, depending on your view, either a typically narcissistic member of the younger generation or a victim of all that has transpired. The older women, veterans of the years of conflict in Northern Ireland, view those battle scars as badges of honor that would have benefited the young.
Finally, there's Sweeney (John Francis Babbo), a kind of teenage savant and all-around local character, wandering into dangerous waters. One scene late in the play, wherein Sweeney is told to undress, feels exceptionally uncomfortable in this staging.
So there are characters aplenty and rich language but not, alas, anyone with whom one can empathize, nor, in the final analysis, any dramatic tension in the air. The production lacks any kind of build or arc -- it just progresses and, therefore, one is ready for it to journey no more, whatever the secrets of the lost man in the sea.
Spallen's interesting writing will, I hope, be back in Chicago. Next time, though, may this expressive, emerging scribe be granted a lighter and clarifying touch. Stateside, at least, you gotta explain your case and hold the customers.
cjones5@tribune.com
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
"Strandline"
1.5 STARS
When: Through Dec. 7
Where: A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells St
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $30-$35 at 312-943-8722 or aredorchidtheatre.org
