Theatre in Review: The Emperor Jones (Irish Repertory Theatre)

	Obi Abili. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

It's curious how when a play is presented can alter one's perceptions of it; when the Irish Repertory first produced The Emperor Jones in 2009, one's attention was focused on the its savage, if dated, depiction of racism and how the director, Ciarán O'Reilly, and his design team created a kind of chamber version of the bizarre expressionistic style mandated by its author, Eugene O'Neill. Seeing it this past weekend, after the last few tumultuous days in Washington, one was gripped by its depiction of the downfall of a dictator whose grip on power is entirely based on myth. As Jones says, "Ain't a man's talkin' big what makes him big -- long as he makes folks believe it." This is one production Mike Pence is unlikely to attend, let alone Ivanka Trump, with or without Justin Trudeau.

The analogy with current events only goes so far, of course, for O'Neill had many things on his mind. The title character is a black American who, having murdered twice, flees to a West Indies island where he convinces the native population that he has magic powers -- and can be killed by a silver bullet. Having cruelly exploited members of his own race, he has, he thinks, a watertight escape plan -- through the jungle to a waiting French gunboat that will take him to Martinique. The play begins on the day the rebellion begins, and Jones, fleeing, is plunged into a nightmare recreation of his troubled history -- and, also of slavery in America.

This is basically a full-on return of the 2009 production and is worth seeing for its assured style alone -- especially notable for a play that might seem all but unrevivable today. Charlie Corcoran's set surrounds the action in green curtains topped by thick vines, with an enormous tree at downstage right. The actors who play the natives, their faces covered with masks designed by Bob Flanagan, also deploy his puppets, depicting, among others, Jones' homicide victims -- one of them rendered as a skeleton offering to join him in a game of craps -- plus the members of a chain gang and Southern women attending a slave auction with their menfolk. Even the more dubious design touches, such as the living trees, in costumes by Antonia Ford-Roberts and Whitney Locher, make an impact, thanks to Brian Nason's sinister, constantly shifting lighting design. (Nason also makes bold use of saturated colors and patterns to created a many-layered, almost hallucinatory atmosphere.) Ryan Rumery and M. Florian Staab's music and sound provide doom-laden accompaniments to the action; one unexpected sound effect caused me to jump out of my seat.

In a role that did great things for John Douglas Thompson, the British actor Obi Abili delivers a performance that isn't easily shaken off. If he isn't the hulking, menacing presence, he is no less powerful -- his taut, coiled body visibly wracked by rage and, increasingly, terror as he wanders through a dark and forbidding jungle, haunted by macabre visions, maddened by drums pounding in the distance, wasting his bullets on phantoms that vanish before he can do them harm. Despite the outsized emotions he must register, there's a precision to everything Abili does, a variety of shadings that reveal each scene to be another step in Jones' descent into madness and death.

The Emperor Jones is very much a play of its time; it's a stunning polemic against racism and colonialism, but no doubt many in the audience will be pained by O'Neill's depiction of the title character: his lust for power, the dialect he employs -- which, even to a sympathetic ear, can seem painfully out of date -- and his brutal humiliation, which leaves him reduced to a near-animal state. Such critcisms may be justified; then again, what white playwright of his time was willing stare down such evils, exposing their ugliness for all to see? The concept of a black dictator is a cunning way of pointing out that no one is immune to the lure of absolute power, not least those who have been its victims. O'Neill's script is a weaponized comment on human cruelty, designed to make audiences feel uncomfortable, and, produced with passion and creativity as it is here, it continues to do so.

And, of course, recent events have given The Empreror Jones an additional sting. If this, and Abili's stunning performance, aren't enough, consider the fact that it may be a very long time before another company presents such a fully realized staging of this rarely seen play. Unless, of course, the Irish Rep revives it again in another decade or so -- that might not be a bad idea at all -- and if there's an actor with Abili's skills available. -- David Barbour