Theatre in Review: I Hear You and Rejoice (Irish Arts Center)

	Mikel Murfi. Photo: Gili Benita

I Hear You and Rejoice takes place at an Irish funeral, which is to say that laughter and grief compete for pride of place. The deceased is Kitsy Rainey, the title character in The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey, part of a trilogy of solo shows by (and starring) Mikel Murfi, all three of which are currently, all too briefly, running at Irish Arts Center. Kitsy, to be sure, was something of a handful. As the priest presiding over her requiem Mass, nervously notes, "It would be impossible for any of us to guess what may actually be happening in heaven at this very moment but I'm happy to surmise that, with the imminent arrival of Kitsy Rainey that God's holy kingdom, will be changed for the rest of eternity."

Indeed, he adds, Kitsy, the self-described "Holy Ghost's sister," has rewritten the funeral liturgy to her precise specifications. For openers, the priest begins the service with "In the name of the Father and of The Son and The Holy Ghost and His sister, there in that box there before me -- Amen." And we're off.

On this note of derangement, the play moves between a liturgy like no other and the memories of Pat Farnon, Kitsy's widower, a cobbler who is mute and gradually going blind. That theirs was a later-in-life marriage did not preclude deep devotion or a profound sensuality. (One of his most powerful memories is of her in the bath: "The curves of her floating in the bathwater. The way she hangs her head forward onto her breast so I can soap and flannel down the ridge of her spine.") But, as we move through the readings, homily, and eulogy, it becomes increasingly clear that Kitsy, whose past remains shrouded in mystery, had a transformative effect on the entire community. As Magic Mick, prominent among the town's rich gallery of eccentrics, notes, "Pat, every once in a lifetime, a woman the like of your wife comes along, and when she does the universe has to expand to accommodate her."

Progressing through the service, moving between past and present (the mid-1980s), Murfi's text glitters with cantankerous, plain-spoken Irish wit. There's the mourner at the wake who takes Pat's hand and says, "I'm sorry for your troubles -- it gets much worse." There's the encounter, many years earlier with the good father who, relaxing into a 15-minute sermon, is shocked to see Kitsy stalking out of the nave, announcing that she is off to get a haircut. "Would you have not thought of getting your hair cut before you came in here today?" wonders the priest. "When I came in here today, I didn't need a haircut!" she replies. And there are the protracted hostilities with Sylvia Neary, "the font of all knowledge," aka the town gossip. In a masterstroke, Kitsy orders a hamper of food from the St. Vincent de Paul charity to be delivered to Sylvia, whom she describes as "an awful poor woman who could really do with one but who's too proud to ask." Twisting the knife, she adds, "Can I just say, that little woman is a bit afraid of the dark...could you deliver that in broad daylight?"

The astonishingly gifted Murfi switches characters in nanoseconds, seemingly to physically transform as well, gaining and losing years as needed. His true tour-de-force moment comes as Turkey Evans, the sports commentator. Kitsy rides shotgun on the local soccer team and, during a tumultuous county final, takes a poke at the referee, managing to deck the linesman from the opposing team. Evans' account of this fateful event, soon to become enshrined in local legend, is a peerlessly funny stream-of-consciousness routine. ("And it looks like wee Philly Greenan, wee Philly Greenan is the linesman and to me, he is out cold...he is refrigerated! The John's Ambulance people are running over and they're plying him with water but sure, it's all Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers these days...they'd be better off maybe lobbing him into one of them.")

And if, like me, you've already seen The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey, which reveals certain dark secrets from her past, I Hear You and Rejoice contains some highly meaningful adumbrations. For example, Kitsy's devotion to The Playboy of the Western World ("I can relate to it...someone who tries to kill their father, twice") becomes much more understandable in the later play, as does her bizarre idea of staging a variety show ventriloquism act with Pat. We also get here a fuller, more riotous glimpse of Tony Cleary, The Amazing No Instrumental Man, whose act includes imitating a harmonica, trump, and the tenor John McCormack on a 78 record, complete with scratches. In addition to being a shapeshifter, Murfi is also a master of vocal effects.

On a sadder note, we see Kitsy bluntly admitting that the end is near. ("Pat, the doctor says I'm for the high jump") and the devastating effect it has on the man she so fiercely loves. The alliance between the bossy, luminous chatterbox, and the silent, profoundly decent cobbler is something to be cherished. In a funny way, Kitsy is a harbinger of the free-thinking contemporary Ireland that has emerged in the last few decades, as recounted in Fintan O'Toole's magisterial history We Don't Know Ourselves. As Huby -- Kitsy and Pat's perennial sidekick -- muses, "She was a woman of her own mind and indeed without us even noticing she encouraged all of us to think for ourselves. She taught us how to live." I could go on -- the script is endlessly quotable -- but, safe to say, I Hear You and Rejoice is deeply moving and frequently hilarious, a profound portrait of a marriage, and an accomplished work from an artist who is carving out of his native County Sligo, a terrain as unforgettable as Brian Friel's fictional Ballybeg. Praise be to Irish Arts Center for letting us get to know him. --David Barbour