Theatre in Review: The Shaugraun (Irish Repertory Theatre) "The truth is locked in my soul, and heaven keeps the key." "Who are you who dare to lay hands on me? Do you know who I am?" "What! Has an infernal fate played such a trick on me?" Welcome to the world of The Shaugraun, where it's anyone's guess which is riper, the plotting or the dialogue. It's one of the many potboilers cooked up by Dion Boucicault, the Irish-born actor/manager/hack extraordinaire, who, for several decades in the mid-to-late 19th century, kept audiences very happy on both sides of the Atlantic. Among his great successes, Rip Van Winkle provided the famous actor Joseph Jefferson with a signature vehicle, and his comedy London Assurance (1841) is still in circulation; London's National Theatre recently had a big hit with it in a production starring Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw. Mostly, however, Boucicault was the king of melodrama; he excelled at spinning wildly convoluted plots that somehow managed to come out right in the end. A sterling example is The Shaugraun. A blockbuster in 1874, it reportedly earned the author half a million dollars in 19th-century money. Any attempt at summarizing the plot would leave you glazed over with boredom; such pleasures as The Shaugraun has to offer are like those of a mechanical toy, and you have to be present in the theatre to enjoy seeing the components click into place. Suffice to say it's a tale of intrigue set in the County Sligo countryside; the components include a young man, falsely accused of Fenian rebellion, who has escaped from his Australia-bound prison ship; a pair of lovely young ladies who have been cheated out of their estate; an asinine, but surprisingly effective, English military officer; a larcenous, lust-ridden, double-dealing squire and his henchman, who is skilled at bearing false witness; a conscience-stricken priest; and the title character, a mischief-making rogue who meddles in everyone's affairs. Keeping things lively are a funeral with a living corpse, a prison break, various chases and at-gunpoint confrontations, and a fatal plunge from a cliff. If you're wondering how comfortably all this fits on the postage-stamp stage at the Irish Rep, the answer is not very. The play's outsized emotions all but threaten to blow the place down. Further complicating matters is Charlotte Moore's direction, which veers between taking Boucicault's clockwork plotting at face value and kidding it to death. The scenes featuring Kevin O'Donnell as Robert Folliot, the stalwart hero, and Sean Gormely as Corry Kinchella, Robert's sworn enemy, are pretty much played straight, while the agenda-ridden courtship of Claire, Robert's sister (Allison Jean White), and the British Captain Harry Molyneux (Mark Shanahan) plays like something out of The Carol Burnett Show. As the title character, Patrick Fitzgerald tries to steer a middle course, but his lovable scalawag routine palls before too long. (My favorite cast member is Sadie, in the all-important role of Tatters, the dog; she's a delight in every appearance.) As a result, The Shaugraun teeters this way, then that way- ending up nowhere in particular. However, Moore has seen to it that the play has a lovely physical production. Klara Zieglerova's scenery sets the action against a lovely landscape featuring mountains, greenery, and clouds in a stunningly blue sky. This is partly depicted on a three-sided flat that can revolve to serve as any number of interiors. The Shaugraun contains 16 scenes, yet the designer's simple concept serves them all. Brian Nason's lighting infuses the stage with color, and the costumes, by Linda Fisher and Jessica Barrios Wright, include some lovely and remarkably detailed work for the female characters. Zachary Williamson's sound design includes such effects as drums, storms, crowds, and plenty of Irish fiddling. There's plenty of energy expended on The Shaugraun, but none of it convinces me that this is little more than an historical curio. Boucicault's plays require very special handling if they are to work for audiences today, and, for all the affection on display, The Shaugraun isn't treated with the care it needs.--David Barbour 
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