"The Seafarer", written by renowned playwright Conor McPherson, is perhaps the least Christmasy Christmas play in the run this season, and a refreshing break from the usual holiday hoo-ha and humbug portrayed by Frank Capra types or Alvin and the Chipmunks. In this spirited rendition, five aging drunks come together in Dublin on Christmas Eve to play poker, get shitfaced and contemplate the tiresome fragility that is the human condition. Even the Devil gets hammered in this fidgety tale of crippling unease and impossible salvation. "The Seafarer" takes place in the squalid apartment of Sharky (Francis Guinan) and his brother Richard (John Mahoney), recently blinded on a drunken binge which resulted in an unfortunate run-in with a dumpster. Fellow louses Ivan (Alan Wilder) and Nicky (Randall Newsome) join the sorry lot of rabble-rousers, whose lives of vulnerability and loss are as transparent as the state of their livers. While the dialogue oozes with frivolity, revelry and four-letter poetry, the gloomy subtext is always lurking and eventually becomes palpable in the form of Mr. Lockhart (Tom Irwin) also known as Satan, Lucifer and, in chick-lit circles, Meryl Streep. The stakes of the once jovial poker game turn sinister once Lockhart mentions that Sharky is playing for his soul.
Though the play tends to meander in conversational nostalgia for some time before getting to the point, the elements of the well-lubricated hell hole that is the lives of its characters are distressingly apt and engaging enough to keep audience members firmly planted in a state of intoxication. Or pity. Using metaphors both subtle and not, "The Seafarer" sets about addressing the nuances of blindness, regret and how one’s personal hell is often far more worrisome than that of its biblical counterpart. Stunning performances by its veteran cast, especially John Mahoney, whose inebriated invoking of “Jay-sus!” still has me raising my glass.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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