Theatre in Review: The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey (Irish Arts Center) As it happens, you can send messages to your loved ones from beyond the grave -- if you plan in advance. That's the modus operandi of the title character of this solo show, one of three being presented in repertory at the Irish Arts Center by the actor and playwright Mikel Murfi. Kitsy is gone from this earth, but she still has a few details that she'd like to settle, and she means to do so. A little thing like mortality isn't going to stop her. It's an indication of Murfi's charmingly oddball slant on life that The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey is largely narrated by her widower, Pat Farnon, who happens to be mute. The playwright has granted us access to Pat's thoughts, offering us a form of access that even his beloved wife was denied. A modest sort, Pat is grateful to have lived so long with "the most beautiful woman that ever water washed." Not long for this world himself, according to his doctor, he is content to spend his few remaining days amid happy memories until he unearths a suitcase Kitsy left for him to open after her death. Among its contents is a tape recording that represents her last will and testament. Kitsy, who in life possessed a magpie wit, tries to put Pat at ease, announcing, "The Holy Ghost's sister rides again," then giving him the hot skinny on the afterlife. "Holy Mary seems lovely," she notes, "a bit aloof but sure why wouldn't ya be aloof and you the Mother of God, but she's nice, nice and quiet, keeps herself to herself. Lovely clothes." Of the son of God, however, she says, "For a fella who could walk on water, he's a useless swimmer." Counseling him to listen to the tape in small doses, she gives him instructions about the creation of the Kitsy Rainey Memorial Cup, to be awarded to the biggest losers in the county football final. She also has Pat summon their friend Huby for a visit, just so she can scare the bejesus out of him, too. But Kitsy's tape has more confounding elements, not least of which is the revelation of a deep childhood secret and her confession to a terrible crime (which, to be sure, she got away with and, on her dying day, never regretted). There's also the strange gift that she has left behind. I won't describe it except to note that it is the last thing you might give to someone who doesn't speak. Bizarrely, it leads to Pat's appearance at a variety show, where, aided by sound effects, he has an unexpected triumph; it's Kitsy's final, cockeyed gift to the husband she has loved for so long. With its deep appreciation of our fallen world and its innumerable grotesqueries, The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey is a Celtic knot of a play in which hilarity and sorrow are deeply intertwined. Murti has some of his best fun with supporting characters, such as Tony Cleary, "The Amazing No Instrumental Man," and Jimmy Farrell "a numinous, unearthly fellow" and a poacher, who, most of the time, gets caught thanks to his habit of belting "Salve Regina" while breaking the law. Underneath, however, is an acute study of a marriage so peculiar it simply had to work: an ebullient woman harboring dark secrets and a man with limited communication abilities but deep reserves of devotion. (In Pat's luminous recollection, "She was the sun and the moon and the stars and a universe to me, a life force and three quarters and in no time at all, she was gone.") The playwright's account of Pat's widowerhood is so touching, so precise in its melancholy details, that you want to hold it close. Murfi impersonates the living and the dead with equal acuity, slipping effortlessly between characters, and, without an ounce of sentimentality, insisting that even one's next-to-last breath is sacred, so full is the world of unexpected wonders. Murfi, who acts as his own director, has overseen the simplest of productions with functional lighting by Nick McCall and sound by Jack Cawley but, really, nothing more is needed here than the actor and his text. They are the basic ingredients of an entire world, one that I was only too happy to visit. --David Barbour 
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