SALON

Tuesday, Feb 12, 2013 1:16 AM UTC

Review: Racism fuels poignant ‘Luck Of The Irish’

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Review: Racism fuels poignant 'Luck Of The Irish'Shown in a publicity photo released by Lincoln Center Theater are, from left, Dashiell Eaves, Amanda Quaid, Victor Williams and Eisa Davis in a scene from the LCT3 production of "Luck of the Irish," currently performing off-Broadway at the Claire Tow Theater in New York. (AP Photo/Lincoln Center Theater, Erin Baiano.)(Credit: AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — The old expression that an Irish person can “hold a grudge like a tomahawk” holds alarmingly true in Kirsten Greenidge’s smart, affecting new play, ironically titled “Luck Of The Irish.”

A suspenseful production of the bittersweet drama opened Monday night at the Claire Tow Theater, as part of Lincoln Center’s LCT3 series showcasing emerging talent.

Two sets of events occur 50 years apart, thoughtfully staged by Rebecca Taichman with ghostly overlapping of the timeshifting scenes. In the late 1950s, with racism still prevalent in many American neighborhoods, an Irish-American couple in financial difficulties accepts money to purchase a large home in an all-white Boston suburb on secret behalf of a well-off, highly educated African-American doctor and his wife.

Fifty years later, the elderly Irish wife astounds the recently deceased black couple’s grandchildren by claiming the house is really hers and they need to move out. The rest of the play tautly unravels the mystery of the missing house deed, but the drama is as much about belonging and ambition as it is about racism, poverty and envy.

There is humor and ease in the modern era, because Greenidge, who also wrote the edgy urban comedy “Milk Like Sugar,” writes the way real people talk. Sentences run on or trail off, or both, and slang flows naturally. Greenidge also easily incorporates the undercurrents and stiff social conventions of the 1950s.

Marsha Stephanie Blake is feisty and emotional as Hannah, who recently moved into the house with her husband and hyperactive 10-year-old son to care for her dying grandmother. Incredibly, they are still the only black family in the area, and Blake gives a nuanced portrayal of an anxious mother increasingly stressed out by the home ownership issue and her son’s social problems at his all-white school.

Amanda Quaid skillfully plays the resentful young 1950s Irish housewife, Patty Ann Donovan, her face often pursed-up with displeasure like she’s sucking on a lemon. Jealously, Patty Ann holds onto the Taylors’ deed as ransom for more money, even though the Taylors paid for the house and gave her husband a big fee besides. Quaid’s tart Boston-Irish accent reflects Patty Ann’s flinty personality, as she snaps out complaints and often bigoted, remarks to her henpecked husband.

Flighty young Joe Donovan, who fathered six children but doesn’t hold down a regular job, is imbued with guilt and sensitivity by Dashiell Eaves. The elderly, 21st-century Donovans are expertly portrayed by Robert Hogan (wearing a long-beaten-down air) and, in a late appearance, Jenny O’Hara (credibly emanating a lifetime of outrage.)

Eisa Davis seems lit from within as Lucy, the outwardly serene wife of doctor Rex Taylor. Victor Williams exudes confidence and capability as her loving, hard-working husband.

Back in the present day, Frank Harts is down-to-earth as Hannah’s engineer husband, Rich. When not bucking up Hannah with common sense, he’s hollering comedic advice to his never-seen son, like, “We’re men, son. We don’t call Mommy except in our sleep.” Hannah’s at odds with her younger sister Nessa, too, (Carra Patterson, sweetly disgruntled) and the sisters argue emotionally about keeping or selling the house.

Taichman smoothly stages most of the play on a field of artificial grass that serves as the Taylors’ large, idyllic back yard. Other locations are smartly delineated by Mimi Lien’s set design, including an airy, acrylic rendition of the exterior of the Taylors’ house. In sharp contrast is the dark, steamy kitchen where Patty Ann does other people’s laundry and nurses her misguided resentments.

Although the elderly Joe speaks wistfully of “the winds of change”, it’s clear those winds and the alleged “luck” of the Irish both bypassed his bitter wife long ago.

___

Online:

http://lct.org

More By Jennifer Farrar.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations