Theatre in Review: Donnybrook! (Irish Repertory Theatre)

	Barbara Marineau, Terry Donnelly (seated), David Sitler, Kevin McGuire, James Barbour, Mary Mallen, Patrick Cummings, and Kern McFadden. Photo: Carol Rosegg

For nearly a decade, Irish Repertory Theatre has been producing vest-pocket productions of vintage musicals with mixed results; presented on the company's tiny stage, with tiny casts and even tinier bands, the results have been not unlike listening to an original cast album on a transistor radio. It's all the more surprising, then, that all involved should have made such a beguiling thing of Donnybrook!

The surprise stems from the fact that Donnybrook! was originally a flop, logging a mere 68 performances on Broadway in 1961. No one has ever suggested that it was a horror; among musical theatre fans, the rap is that, in a season that included Camelot, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Lucille Ball in Wildcat, Irma La Douce, and Carnival! (and with Fiorello!, The Sound of Music, and Bye Bye Birdie still selling tickets), a workmanlike piece without stars -- Eddie Foy, Jr. was the biggest name on the marquee -- was doomed to be lost in the shuffle. Oddly enough, Charlotte Moore, the director of the Irish Rep revival, has turned the show's rather basic, meat-and-potatoes approach to her advantage, distilling Donnybrook! into a rowdy, song-filled anecdote that makes wry fun of the Irish -- their eternal contrariness and love of a good dustup.

The show is based on Maurice Walsh's short story "The Quiet Man," which became a John Ford film classic. (If you grew up in an Irish family, as I did, you were most likely made to watch it annually, a duty as solemn as Sunday Mass; for years, I wasn't sure of the difference between Maureen O'Hara and the Blessed Virgin Mary.) The title character is Sean Enright, a retired American prizefighter, who returns to the town where he was born; on arrival, he locks eyes with Mary Kate Danaher, the unmarried and remarkably strong-willed village beauty. ("Don't smile, Mary Kate," she is advised at one point. "It would betray your nature.") The attraction is mutual, but there's Mary Kate's sullen brother, Will, the keeper of her dowry, to get around. Mikeen Flynn, the local matchmaker and all-around fixer, hatches a convoluted plot designed to obtain Will's consent to his sister's marriage; when the truth comes out at the wedding reception, the ensuing scandal climaxes in an epic brawl that provides grand entertainment for the citizens of Innisfree.

There's no pretending that Donnybrook! is as richly detailed or as wickedly amusing as the film. With John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and the great Barry Fitzgerald leading a cast of Ford regulars, in addition to the stunning cinematography of Winston C. Hoch, it is, as Dave Kehr recently wrote in The New York Times, "an uplifting fantasy of a traditional community that continues to thrive by resisting modern encroachments, of a magnificent couple born out of conflict, and of a broken man who finds redemption by escaping the past and embracing the present." As is sometimes the case with musical theatre adaptations, Robert McEnroe's book is an act of simplification, a canvas designed largely to accommodate Johnny Burke's score. The latter yielded no standards -- ironically, a tribute to Burke's clear intention to forgo easy-listening pop hits in order to write for plot and character. In any case, there's a lot to like in such numbers as "Sez I," Mary Kate's declaration independence from the male sex, and "Sad Was the Day," a not entirely sincere ode to the passing of a local publican.

The aces in Moore's deck are a trio of big-voiced Broadway regulars, each of whom, in addition to being thoroughly in tune with the show's contrarian humor, knows a thing or two about selling a song. (John Bell's strong musical direction provides crucial support.) With his rangy frame, powerful baritone, and surprisingly diffident manner, James Barbour (no relation to me) is an ideal Will, whether matching tempers with the woman of his dreams, baring his jaundiced opinion of "The Loveable Irish," or brooding about his future in the ballad "A Quiet Life." He has a fine match in Jenny Powers' saucy, sassy, thoroughly cantankerous Mary Kate. Said to have "the temper of Satan's mother-in-law," there's also a real wistfulness in her, especially in the ballad "He Makes Me Feel I'm Lovely," and a strong chemistry with Barbour that keeps us rooting for them to get together. As Kathy Carey, the robust, well-endowed, and highly eligible widow who, against her will, gets dragged into the action, Kathy Fitzgerald navigates a pair of numbers with Samuel Cohen (a slyly amusing Mikeen) with jaunty, vaudevillian ease. I also treasure the moment when, trying to strike an amorous pose, she tells a suitor, "My mind is a frothy pink whirlpool." Adding to the fun are Patrick Cummings as a village lad who leads the chorus in a rousing account of the title tune, and Terry Donnelly and Barbara Marineau as a pair of old biddies, each of whom views the action through the bottom of a whiskey glass.

As is often the case at the Irish Rep, a talented design team works wonders in a difficult, if not unforgiving, space. James Noone wraps a lushly colored abstraction of the Irish countryside around the stage; a whitewashed cottage, placed on a turntable, stands in for many locations and opens up to become Kathy Carey's pub. Brian Nason's warm, colorful lighting adds to the Emerald Isle atmosphere. The costumes, by Linda Fisher and Leon Dobkowski, are solid, believable renditions of Irish village wear circa 1951. Zachary Williamson's sound design includes a few key effects, especially a thunderstorm that marks a milestone in the Will-Mary Kate romance.

Of course, this isn't your grandmother's Donnybrook! The book has been trimmed and altered a bit, a few songs dropped, and a few Irish folk airs added, along with "Isle of Innisfree," by the 20th-century pop composer Richard Farrelly. (Most notably, Bing Crosby recorded it, a mild irony since Burke was, with James Van Heusen, part of Crosby's in-house songwriting team.) Also, a couple of Burke standards, "It Could Happen to You" and "But Beautiful," have been interpolated; the best thing I can say is that they prove to be less jarring than I feared. And with Jack Cole directing, one imagines the Broadway Donnybrook! must have featured some big dance sequences, none of which are in evidence here. (The choreographer, Barry McNabb, does a solid job of moving the cast around the postage-stamp stage.)

But, from the opening moment, when Sean asks for directions to his cottage and everyone on stage points in a different direction, Moore presides over the feisty proceedings with an unusually sure hand. Donnybrook! is sure to be of interest to musical theatre fans and is practically guaranteed to give Irish Rep subscribers a rollicking good time. To quote one of the show's songs, "Dee-lightful is the word."--David Barbour