Dublin Carol

I just saw my first Conor McPherson play tonight. Dublin Carol. It was fascinating. One of my classmates has read many of his works and didn't think this one was strong. After seeing the show and discussing it on the Luas ride back, I think he may be reconsidering his previous reading of the text. It is a funny and nuanced text. There is a possibility of production teams missing the details in the script and stopping their analysis at the cliche. Or, even worse, not thinking the audience will think beyond the stereotypes. And, unfortunately, I think that is the case with the production we saw. They added a tableau bit between at the end of each scene and it was unnecessary and NOT in the script. As a playwright that must be maddening. If you want to stage my play, stage my play; if you want to stage your own project, then write and stage your own project. Because most people in the audience probably thought that was part of the script; if they see a different production, they probably will wonder why they didn't do the tableau.

Being in Ireland has been an interesting experience in the negotiation of stereotypes. In the capital city of a country with a large income from tourism, there is a significant amount of packaging and delivering an "Irish" experience for eager consumers. Considering which Irish playwrights are produced and well-known in the US, there is a consistency in the presentation of rural, happy, innocent, drunk (but well-meaning), wise (but slightly backward) Irish people. This is a generalization, obviously, but there is a trend. Brian Friel's early plays hit huge in the US, but I think they fulfilled a desire for Irish nostalgia more than a contemporary meaning that would be found by Irish audiences. This is not to say that there are not Irish folks interested in plays that fulfill the desire for nostalgia, but there were other, specific, and relevant items that probably were received differently by an audience in the US.

To bring it back to Dublin Carol, I found myself close to tears a few times because it was so difficult to watch this man unwilling to take responsibility, unwilling to acknowledge that he is hurting, unwilling to ask for help, unwilling to help himself... and there have been numerous plays and cliches about Irish who drink, but that doesn't make the reality any less real. Isn't that almost more painful? To know that this issue has been going on for years and it is STILL an issue that is relevant? And there is the cycle right in front of the audience; we're almost made complicit and I don't think many people in the audience could see that. This undertaker has a drink at the beginning of the play right after finishing a funeral; we can justify the shot of whiskey because there is reference to some difficult moment with one of the mourners. As the play progresses and the drinks become more frequent and the problems or results of previous binges become known, I wonder if anyone in the audience started to rethink that permission for his drinking, the excuses being made. I wonder how many people saw past the witticisms and the grand stories to see the estranged daughter finally take action to confront her father's drinking by standing right next to the bottle so he would have to do it right in front of her if he was going to have any more. And, in the brilliant staging, when he finally goes back to the bottle, he walks away and turns his back on her before he drinks.

The play is full of subtleties like this. And I don't know if the audience saw them. I think what a person saw and experienced depends on her/his relationship to alcohol(ism). He was into day two of a drinking binge after (presumably) years of sobriety and he wasn't even worried about making excuses in the present. But he was still making excuses for the past. And there was his daughter, not knowing things had ever been any different, not knowing he had pulled himself together for a while there. And there she was, still willing to make excuses for him.

The whole thing, the audience laughing at moments that brought tears to my eyes and an ache to my stomach, the misplaced emphasis in production design (see tableau comments), the too low stakes of the performers at different points... it all combined to make me want to weep. Because this cycle will keep going. This man who felt like a coward when he knew his dad was beating his mom still chooses to live as a coward and still justifies that choice to himself and believes what he tells himself. He only stopped when someone who understood took him in, established a routine, and modeled healthy behaviour. But we don't know that he stopped even then. And that's the hardest part for these characters (and for the audience to some extent). The doubt. The emptiness trying to be filled. The wanting. The sense of lack. So some people laugh; some people cry; and some people, hopefully, will choose to walk away and change her/his life.