Theatre in Review: Little Thing, Big Thing (Fishamble: The New Play Company/59E59)

	Donal O'Kelly, Sorcha Fox. Photo: Pat Redmond.

One doesn't usually expect to find 59E59 hosting an action comedy thriller with an odd-couple twist, but Donal O'Kelly's new play features a plot borrowed from the summer offerings at your local multiplex. The biggest innovation Little Thing, Big Thing has to offer is the identity of its leading characters: O'Kelly brings together Larry, a small-time crook hired to boost a statue of the Blessed Virgin from an empty, up-for-sale convent, with Martha, a nun who has just returned from years of service in Nigeria. Martha is carrying a roll of film given to her by a friend; she doesn't know what it contains, but soon she and Larry are on the run from Mojoko and Kurt, a pair of pistol-packing tough guys.

Fleeing in a car with that contraband Marian statue in the trunk, Larry and Martha lead Mojoko and Kurt on a chase through the Irish countryside, arriving in Dublin, where they are to deliver the film to Henry, a Nigerian national who has been involved in protests against Scarab Oil, a powerful energy firm that moves into Third World Countries, leaving a trail of environmental disaster in its wake. Nothing goes according to plan, however, and soon Larry and Martha are holed up in a Catholic church, implicated in the murder of a corrupt solicitor and desperately trying to figure out how to contact Henry before he is deported at midnight.

It's a twisty tale, rendered with the maximum of invention in a format that makes extraordinary demands on O'Kelly and Sorcha Fox, who play Larry and Martha as well as everyone else. In addition to Mojoko, Kurt, and Harry, the characters include Seamie, a two-bit Dublin criminal; Benedict, the assassinated lawyer; Father Augustine Farrell, a blind priest with an apostolate to immigrants; and a methadone addict reduced to beggary but nevertheless gifted with skills in the darkroom.

It's fun to watch these highly skilled actors slip in and out of various roles, maintaining a frantic pace as Larry and Martha's fortunes grow ever more desperate. At the same time, the narrative, which is basically one long chase sequence, is the kind of thing the movies do much, much better; most of Little Thing, Big Thing is about finding ways of translating scenes of physical action and gunplay to a small stage with a cast of two. This leads to long passages of narration that are often rendered in lively, wisecracking fashion. (I was particularly amused by Larry's description of lowering the statue of Mary out of the convent, referring to it as "the Assumption in reverse.") If you think the best plays show, rather than tell, audiences what is happening, this may not be the attraction for you.

And, even as one admires the multitasking actors and the clever, fast-moving narrative, Little Thing, Big Thing too often offers frantic action in place of suspense and emotional involvement. The play coasts on the comic notion of Larry and Martha as unlikely action heroes; we are told about the criminal ties that led Larry to burglarize the convent, as well as a couple of romantic interludes that prove Martha doesn't take those pesky vows of celibacy too seriously, but, other than these scant details, they retain the dimensionality of video game figures. It doesn't help that the ugly facts of corporate intrigue and ecological devastation, and the astringent, ironic finale don't jive with the broadly comic action that comes before it.

Anyway, under Jim Culleton's direction, O'Kelly and Fox make a grand pair of storytellers, guiding us through the labyrinthine script, its dialogue laced with Irish slang. (A glossary is provided, but you'll have to listen, closely.) O'Kelly is especially good at portraying Larry's mounting panic in the face of each new peril and Fox captures Martha's prim disapproval and blank astonishment at the louche crowd of characters with whom she comes in contact. Other plus factors are John Comiskey's spartan set and subtly shifting lighting, as well as Carl Kennedy's protean sound design, which blends African-style music with a wide range of effects, including moving cars, ringing phones, police sirens, voiceover dialogue, and a creepily insinuating commercial for Scarab Oil. Maria Tapper's costumes are also solid. As a workout for a couple of skilled actors, Little Thing, Big Thing may provide a fair amount of pleasure, provided you don't mind the sudden, bitter change of tone in the final moments. But the best thrillers are about the revelation of character, as revealed through action, something that never happens here. O'Kelly has cooked up quite a yarn, but he hasn't managed to make the resolution of it -- and the fates of its hero and heroine -- into something emotionally binding. This is a diversion that merely diverts, leaving an aftertaste of dissatisfaction. -- David Barbour