How it’s New York: Set in Upper Eastside pub, “Ryan’s Daughter”
How it’s Irish: Part of Origin’s 1st Irish Festival 2022
“Boann and the Well of Wisdom” is a wondrous web of Irish mythology spun in a room above a pub in the depths of a New York winter. The multi-talented Annalisa Chamberlin brought the story to life as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Festival 2022.
This retelling was written by John Kearns, time-served troubadour of the Irish American literary scene in New York. His publishing company is named Boann and Celtic Mythologists will be familiar with the legend of the Irish Goddess of Poetic Inspiration.
Tis a magical tale of a fair maiden whose curiosity gets the better of her and she releases the Salmon of Knowledge from the enchanted Well of Wisdom and lo Ireland’s River Boyne is created.
Boann is also an old Irish word meaning white cow and surely the poetic inspiration for Kearns to set his play in a pub of the same name. The homely 2nd-floor, parlor-bar of Ryan’s Daughter (a neighborhood fave on the Upper Eastside) provided the perfect venue for this World Premiere production.
Ethereal score
The goddess part of the piece is embodied by Chamberlin, both in the title role and as Director, Co-Producer and Singer-Songwriter. Her captivating, sensual and powerful performance is equalled by her unobtrusive direction and ethereal score, which frequently served as a balancing third character.
Chamberlin’s human co-star is Boston native Brendan J. Mulhern, who, as Nechtan, opens the play in pensive mood, adroitly offering the exposition necessary to set the drama in motion.
Although the myth usually depicts the Nechtan character as husband, Kearns’ version has him as father. This choice appeases the modern mindset more apt to accept Nethtan’s paternal efforts to control Boann, even if the youthful Mulhern might appear better cast as spouse.
Either way, Mulhern quickly demonstrates the gravitas to deliver with conviction his lines of intent, however old-fashioned they may seem. So he prescribes the legacy he will leave his daughter, who “will manage it in the way I’ve laid out for her.”
Beguiling Poetry
Yet there is artful rhetoric in the way this stolid patriarch approaches the end of his tenure on the “land-locked Midland mainland” of Kildaire and Mulhern’s brooding portrayal elicits compassion, even as he raises questions like, “how can you not argue with a girl growing into a woman?”
The surge of pipe music that brings Boann to the stage makes us aware that this is no ordinary girl, but “a gentle soul not made for this World.” And with a beguiling poetry of language, action and movement an enchanting Chamberlin has the audience in her thrall.
Like most things Irish, there is hardly a happy ending, but Kearns has crafted a tale of beauty and truth, expertly acted by Chamberlin and Mulhern and ably supported by well-orchestrated sound design.
After all, as Boann explains, “a life without worry is a life without risks and a life without risks is a life without growth.”
