How it’s New York: It’s an immigrant’s tale starring New York actor Michael Mellamphy
How it’s Irish: Originally produced as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Festival, now on at the Irish Rep
There’s always craic to be had in Tim’s bar, over at the Irish Rep where “The Smuggler”, by Ronán Noone, is in residence. And who better to play the affable bartender-in-chief than Michael Mellamphy, former cocktail flair champ and ex-landlord of Ryan’s Daughter on the Upper Eastside?
Bantering with the customers in the auditorium, Mellamphy sets up his intimate Cape Cod bar – neatly designed by Ann Beyersdorfer – flipping beer mats and bottles, dropping drinks and one-liners, to a rousing soundtrack, ranging from Zeppelin to Sinatra. When he eventually breaks into Noone’s blistering verse, the audience is in his thrall.
In his element on this stage, Mellamphy delivers every line as if spinning a yarn to his mates, effortlessly incorporating the relentless rhythm and rhyme of a complex tale of survival at any cost, for a newly-minted ‘Ameri-Can’.
Deftly directed by Conor Bagley, Mellamphy’s physical movement in the space is as dextrous as his vocal flow, as he gives life to a bevy of characters from a local-yokel, bro-cop to a beautiful, young, Brazilian woman.
This one man shows – and tells – how to make a multi-person cast dance in the imagination, as Tim Finnegan, an immigrant Irishman, navigates his way from a bar, through a decorating gang, to people trafficking and back to a bar, with his wife and kid in tow.
Emotional Tour De Force
Not only is it a tale you’ve heard – at least part of – before, ‘worth repeating in verse’, but there is a continual through line of dark humour, which Mellamphy delivers with visceral aplomb:
‘A vagina can be like a slot machine: depending where it drops you out, determines your destiny; it’s to someone’s benefit to keep you down’.
And as Tim slips into a criminal underworld, with a whirl of wonderful lighting – by Michael O’Connor – and well-selected sound – by Liam Bellman-Sharpe – Noone’s writing strides confidently in the world of the verse play, popularized by Molière and revived by the likes of Jez Butterworth, commentating, in wry asides, on how the story unfolds:
‘A little loose in the definition, but now’s not the time for erudition’, then depicting the Epilogue as, ‘The lifting of the veil, the burning off of the fog, the end of the tale’.
Literary flourishes aside, this play is an emotional tour de force, brilliantly realized by Michael Mellamphy and his accomplished creative team: you will laugh, you might cry and you ought to gain more empathy for the immigrant Ameri-Can.
The Smuggler has been extended at the W Scott McLucas Studio Theatre until 12th March 2023. Tickets are available here:
https://irishrep.org/show/2022-2023-season/the-smuggler-2/
