November Theater
The Seafarer
By Trip McCormickSouthern Rep
Canal Place, 3rd Floor
522-6545
www.southernrep.com
Nov. 5 - Dec. 7
Once again, the holidays are upon us. ‘Tis the season for laughter, cheer, and drunken Irish existentialism. Or maybe that was just at my house…
It certainly applies to Richard Harkin’s house, the setting for Irish playwriting sensation Conor McPherson’s latest work, The Seafarer. On stage throughout November and into December at Southern Rep, The Seafarer is sure to give audiences a new perspective on yuletide sentiments and sentimentality.
Far from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, McPherson’s Seafarer is nevertheless a sharply comedic meditation of sorts conducted by five Irish drunks who have congregated for a Christmas Eve poker game in North Dublin. The elderly Mr. Harkin is joined by his despairing live-in younger brother, Sharky; Ivan Curry, a self-invited holiday house guest whose plight is wonderfully encapsulated by a perpetual “feeling my way around,” due to the fact that he’s lost his glasses; a handsome but blundering Nicky Giblin, who is currently seeing Sharky’s ex; and finally, Mr. Lockhart, the well turned-out gentleman who initiates an extraordinarily high-stakes game of poker.
The New York Times’ Ben Brantley has described the arc of the play as “a long night’s journey into day.” The state of drunkenness, into which all five characters fall to varying degrees, is used by McPherson as both the blurry, rusty filter through which we sometimes find it easier to account for our lives, but also as the muddled parallel to life itself—clear-sighted epiphany one moment, confused bewilderment the next.
The Seafarer is many things. Undeniably, one of those things is a frank exploration of how people think, speak, and behave when they’re sloshed. Instead of the slapstick or “I love you man!” sentimentality that one might expect from five rather pathetic besotted bachelors on the eve of a major holiday, though, what you get is a more existential (and with the arrival of Mr. Lockhart, metaphysical) forum.
In addition to, or perhaps despite of, the heavy-handed questions posed by the play’s characters, The Seafarer maintains a laugh-out-loud comedic element. Already an accomplished screenwriter, McPherson’s knack for wit and timing keep the exchange fresh. With the arrival of the oddly dashing Mr. Lockhart, though, the play’s dynamic changes considerably.
If his own self-descriptions do not give it away initially, Lockhart eventually lets the cat out of the bag and flatly announces himself to be that most useful of characters, the Devil incarnate—an announcement aided, no doubt, by Lockhart’s own indulgence in whatever variety of sauce is on offer. While he goes right ahead with what we would expect of the Dark One (seducing his companions into a contest of the highest of stakes), it is the familiarity of his own plight to that of the other characters that is most striking. Eternal rule of the Underworld is described by Lockhart more by stark, cold solitude than anything else. His resignation to that solitude serves to mirror that of his mortal drinking buddies.
In a relatively short period of time, Conor McPherson has been elevated by many critics to the top tier of working playwrights. The Seafarer, on stages from London to New York to Los Angeles, has only elevated him further. Acclaimed San Francisco-based director Mark Routher has been brought in by Southern Rep to take the reins of McPherson’s much-lauded production.