Dion Boucicault may have found his 21st-century soul brother in John McColgan: both are brilliant businessmen who made a fortune worldwide by peddling performances of potted Irishness, Boucicault through his internationally successful melodramas, and McColgan as co-creator of the Riverdance franchise. Now making his legitimate theatre directing debut with Boucicault's best-loved play, McColgan's tactic seems to have been to damn the detractors by making the whole thing as Riverdancey as he pleases: familiar-sounding amplified music swells as we open with a slickly produced Irish dance number. Fabulously grandiose sets swirl by hydraulically; clearly no expense has been spared.
The show was still technically rough on opening night and performances were uneven; initially, it was difficult to tell how seriously the production wanted to be taken. In its stride, though, it hits a level of sublime, exaggerated silliness appropriate to its potboiler plot about the exiled Fenian Robert Ffolliott sneaking back to his bucolic Sligo homestead with the help of his friend Conn, the shaughraun (lovable vagabond) of the title. The enduring significance - and sting - of Boucicault's plays are his still-relevant points about mutual Irish-English misperception, here expressed through the goodhearted Captain Molyneaux, who falls for Robert's sister Claire.
The delights of the production are Don Wycherley as toupee-clutching baddie Corry Kinchella; Aaron Monahan, playing Kinchella's henchman Duff as Harpo Marx; and Fiona O'Shaughnessy, finally in the right milieu for her trademark heaving-bosomed breathiness as Claire.
McColgan has made a serious miscalculation, though, by trying to play what is really an ensemble show as a star vehicle for Adrian Dunbar, who tries gamely but is too handsome and slick (and a bit too far over the hill) to make sense as the rogue Conn.
There is a current of bawdiness, perhaps even homoeroticism, in the play that screams to be better exploited - but, overall, this has the potential to be a great big audience-pleaser.
· Until July 31. Box office: 353-1-878-7222.
