Theatre in Review: Aristocrats (Irish Repertory Theatre)

	Roger Dominic Casey, Sarah Street (foreground), Tom Holcomb. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

In Aristocrats, the past isn't just another country; it is indescribably distant. Casimir, a representative of faded Irish gentry, is the custodian of his family's history, which he curates, in detail, to Tom, a visiting American scholar. (Casimir has been away from home for eleven years, living in Germany with a wife and children nobody quite believes in, but he remains the ultimate authority, if only because no one shares his interests.) In his telling, nearly every notable figure of twentieth-century Irish or European Catholic culture, from Hilaire Belloc to William Butler Yeats, passed through Ballybeg Hall, the ancestral home of the O'Donnells. The stories are at first impressive -- there isn't a knickknack in the library that hasn't been touched by a Great Name -- then mildly confounding and, ultimately, preposterous. Rattling on, Casimir insists that his grandfather heard Chopin play at a party in Vienna, its guest list including Balzac, George Sand, Wagner, and Turgenev, among others. (It is, roughly, 1975, and the Polish composer died one hundred and twenty-five years earlier; maybe a great-grandfather attended?) You can see the skepticism blossoming in the eyes of Roger Dominic Casey, who plays Tom, his assiduous note-taking coming to a halt as the parade of artistic celebrities swells to ludicrous proportions.

The coup de grâce comes when Casimir, happily lost in stories of long ago, mentions Yeats, who, he says, "I remember vividly." Tom quietly points out that Yeats died two months before Casimir was born in 1939. The latter reacts with stunned silence and a faint look of panic: Is everything he says so heavily embroidered? Has he become so adrift in O'Donnell lore that he no longer recognizes the truth? A few minutes later, in an attempt at self-soothing, he describes in glowing terms the funeral of his father, which took place that morning. The local townspeople, he notes, paid their respects, "every shop shut, and every blind drawn; and men kneeling on their caps as the hearse passed; and Nanny sobbing her heart out when the coffin was being lowered." Then, a hint of fear creeping into his voice, he adds, "All that happened, didn't it?"

Memory is a treacherous thing in Aristocrats, whether expressed as the myths on which lives are founded, the truths that must be suppressed at all costs, or the blurred impressions, on the morning after, of a whiskey-soaked night. Casimir is not the only character in Brian Friel's play who suffers from tricks of perception, although he is the most pronounced. When a childhood friend reminds him of the time they cast off in a boat, Casimir draws a blank, wondering, "Good Lord! Were we drowned?" When their mother is mentioned, Claire, the youngest sibling, says, "I think I remember her," adding, hesitantly, "I'm not sure." Alice, Casimir's alcoholic sister, murmurs, "I misbehaved very badly last night, did I?" Told that she sat alone, singing nursery rhymes, she sighs, "That's all right." (When Casimir asks Alice if she recalls the eminent ecclesiastic who often visited, she scoffs, "He must be dead seventy years." "Good heavens, I suppose you're right," Casimir replies.) It's telling that Alice's most profound adult encounter with their tyrant father came when, felled by a stroke, he could no longer identify his children. Friel is often compared to Chekhov but in Aristocrats you can make the case that he is a cousin to Harold Pinter, the bard of splintered memories and haunting echoes from the past.

Tom, the academic, is on the scene, because he is doing research into the "Roman Catholic aristocracy" of Northern Ireland, who, aping their Protestant neighbors, lived in mansions and rented lands to tenant farmers. It was a feudal arrangement, not bound to last, and succeeding generations moved steadily downhill. Eamon, Alice's husband, puts it succinctly: "Great Grandfather-Lord Chief Justice; Grandfather-Circuit Court Judge; Father-simple District Justice; Casimir-failed solicitor." Their expectations distorted by an outdated way of life and their souls scarred by a father "who was adept at stifling things," they are a motley lot, wandering into middle age with little to hope for. In Charlotte Moore's beautifully modulated production, they are brought to vivid, unsentimental life by a marvelous ensemble: Sarah Street's frank, wounded Alice, her lanky red hair gathering around her neck like tendrils, an enormous pair of sunglasses hiding the bruise she doesn't want to discuss; Meg Hennessy as Claire, a gifted pianist deprived of a career, her sprightly nature hiding a lifetime of crippling depressions; Danielle Ryan as the coldly realistic Judith, confined, following her one act of rebellion, to caring for her bedridden father; and Tom Holcomb as Casimir, his talking jags punctuated by nervous giggles, his nervous system hitting overdrive whenever his father's voice is heard. Casimir is still smarting from his father's long-ago remark that, had he been born in the local town, "you'd have become the village idiot. Fortunately for you, you were born here, and we can absorb you."

Among the outsiders connected to the O'Donnells, Shane McNaughton is effective as quiet, helpful Willie, a townsman who cares for Ruth but not her emotional baggage. Tim Ruddy is a rueful presence as Eamon, who set out to marry Ruth but ended up with Alice, living with her in London exile. (Raised by his grandmother, a housemaid during the family's glory days, Eamon is, in many ways, the Lopakhin in this cherry orchard, understanding the O'Donnells better than they do themselves; he is attached to their ruined estate with a fierceness that none of them can summon.) Casey is touching as the kindly Tom, the unwilling witness to so many domestic dramas.

The production has been designed with great care: Charlie Corcoran's set depicts the lawn outside the house, with a cutaway view of the library, an approach hinting at a structure that (as Ruth notes) is rapidly falling apart. David Toser's costumes are ideally suited to characters who, by and large, are out of step with the fashions of the times. Exceptions include the slightly foppish Tom and oddball Uncle George (Colin Lane), who, one day, simply stopped speaking, preferring to stalk the estate in his Sunday best. Michael Gottlieb's lighting begins with bright sunshine, slipping into a colorful sunset that seems to signal the dimming of everyone's hopes. Ryan Rumery and M. Florian Staab's sound design takes in birdsong, telephones, and the flood of melodies emanating from Claire's piano offstage.

As it moves from a wedding that nobody seems to want to a funeral that signals the end of an era, Aristocrats becomes a landscape portrait of sorrow, its figures illuminated by the playwright's penetrating insights and deep reserves of empathy. Gesturing to the house, Casimir tells Eamon, "I think you understand what it has done to all of us." Thanks to Friel, the damage is exquisitely inventoried. --David Barbour