How it’s New York: Irish Repertory Theatre is one of New York’s most beloved Off-Broadway theatres. Asher Muldoon, the playwright/composer, is a rising senior at Princeton (in New Jersey), and the son of poet Paul Muldoon.
How it’s Irish: The musical is an adaptation of the 1992 novel by Patrick McCabe, winner of the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, later adapted into a 1997 film directed by Neil Jordan.
The new musical The Butcher Boy at Irish Repertory Theatre is a very stylish looking production. It looks like a lot of money was spent on the show an adaptation of the 1992 novel by Patrick McCabe: there is an amazing an enormous wall of a TV screen that is used for projections as a scrim for the orchestra behind it with a working door (Set design by Charlie Corcoran, Projections by Dan Scully, Lighting by Kat C. Zhou). There is a cast of 12. Costumes are specific and detailed; there are masks for pigs – I’ll explain later – and each one is slightly different (Mask design by Stanley Allan Sherman). Some of the best designers and directors in the business are at hand, with choreography by Barry McNabb, direction by Irish Rep’s Artistic Director Ciarán O’Reilly, sound design by Irish regular M. Florian Staab, and fight direction by Broadway fight director Rick Sordelet. There’s a four-piece live combo.
And that’s without even starting to get into the really terrific cast, many of whom have Broadway credits.
So stylish is the production, which includes impressive props/set dressing such as a neon pig with little wings used in just one scene, that a person might not at first notice but this is essentially a workshop production. At 2 1/2 hours long, the story lacks focus. You will absolutely, 100 percent, enjoy individual scenes and songs, and the playwright/composer is impressively talented (and young! He will be attracting dangerous envy, put an evil eye talisman on him quick quick). There is potential and this could be something haunting and special — but it needs to be tightened and focused, with a lot of rigor. At present, it’s flashy, and you’re likely to leave hungry for substance
The show opens with a young, 12-ish Francie Brady, played by Nicholas Barasch, playing
with his best friend Joe Purcell, played by Christian Strange (whose accent comes and goes, sometimes faintly West Indies, sometimes not). We are in Clones, in County Monaghan, and it’s the early 60s. The two boys are mischievous, and dream of a better world, and you’d be forgiven for thinking, especially with the name Francie so similar to Frankie. that we’re going to be in an Angela’s Ashes kind of world where a child somehow overcomes squalor, poverty and abuse through humor. Like Frank McCourt’s Frankie, Francie is mischievous, and it seems harmless enough: one of the first things that we see Francie and Joe do is steal the comic books of another boy, Philip Nugent (Daniel Marconi, a comic presence, also a good singer and dancer), who has been brought up in England and has an English accent. So far, so normal. But then Phillip’s mother, Mrs. Nugent (Michele Ragusa), visits Francie’s family, getting Francie in trouble. Francise’s father (Scott Strangland) beats him – and when Mrs. Nugent calls the family pigs, she leads Francie down a path to madness and mayhem.
It’s the pigs, you see. Francie charges Mrs. Nugent a pig toll tax one day to keep walking on the road, and he seems to be somewhat haunted by singing pigs that are demonic voices. Are they a theatrical conceit? No– despite what you might at first think– because later there’s a Francie says “they never did that before, stand up on their hind legs and talk.” So these are actual delusions.
It’s tough to make the story of an actual deluded person work in the theatre, so used are we to seeing expressionistic devices of a completely sane character’s inner world. Heck we’re even used to that in film and television (La La Land, anyone?) Throughout, Francie is funny and often charming. It takes a while to realize he’s an unreliable narrator and witness.
Things go from bad to worse. The huge wall TV screen represents how much Francie itakes from pop culture, especially Westerns. He runs away after a disastrous Christmas party, to a song about conquering the West, “Ride Out! Though the song is terrific and the choreography fun, it’s already too difficult to tell what is real and what isn’t and it’s a shock to realize he’s not daydreaming but has actually left home. The musical does not really work as a criticism of early ’60s Ireland– a pedophile priest in the source material is missing here, for example — or an indictment of the town and society that fails the child. Instead it feels a bit like being a voyeur watching a young boy develop a serious mental illness where he cannot tell what is real , cannot tell how much time has gone by.
Get ready for gore: this is, after all, a play with the word “butcher” in the title.
Barasch is really remarkable as young Francie, with a gorgeous voice – he played Orpheus
in the national tour of Hadestown – he’s also on stage almost all the time, narrating between enacted scenes. His uick shifts from an intense emotion to a shy question appeal and kick you in the guts. Other standouts include Andrea Lynn Green as Ma, whose gorgeous trailing voice and nervy, bird-like movements show us what she cannot say, and Kerry Conte who sweetly plays two living Marys and one visonary Mother Mary. J
O’Reilly’s Direction is first-rate, both emotionally and in terms of illuminating stage pictures, and McNabb’s choreography charms. Muldoon clearly loves the source material. But he needs to work with a dramaturg and hone his talent. That talent is definitely there, however, and we look forward to seeing what he does next. My suggestion?
Less flash – more flesh.
The Butcher Boy is at Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd St., through Sept. 11.
