|
Theater
Balancing art, reality in 1964 Ireland
By RETTA BLANEY
By the end of “A Man of No
Importance,” Alfie Byrne has been transformed, but it’s not by the
theatricals he has devotedly directed in his Dublin church hall. It is, rather,
by opening himself to reality that Byrne is changed.
Roger Rees as Byrne and Faith Prince as his older maiden sister,
Lily, head a cast of 16. The musical theater gifts of Terrence McNally (book),
Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), who last collaborated so
beautifully on the 1998 Broadway musical version of “Ragtime,” are
brought together again for this new off-Broadway musical, based on the 1994
movie of the same name. It runs at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse
Theater in New York through Dec. 29.
Set in 1964, “A Man of No Importance” tells the story of
Byrne, a middle-aged bus conductor and repressed homosexual who is devoted to
Oscar Wilde. He lives a quiet life with Lily, getting his great pleasure
directing an amateur theater group, the St. Imelda Players. His controlled life
is shaken, however, after he gets into trouble with church authorities when he
plans to stage Wilde’s risqué play “Salome,” complete
with the seductive dance of the seven veils.
Byrne’s love for Wilde isn’t limited to the plays he
directs. He also reads Wilde’s poetry to his bus passengers, brightening
their dreary, often rainy, mornings. In the opening number, “A Man of No
Importance,” they sing of the “poetry and art in the air” as,
thanks to Byrne, “the bus becomes something more than a bus” and
“a day is now something more than a day.”
Church members also are lifted out of their worlds in what Byrne
calls “losing yourself in someone else.” The butcher, Mr. Carney
(Charles Keating), can’t wait to get back on stage, hoping to reprise his
role as Algernon in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” “Me soul
needs the exercise,” he says excitedly. Other church hall thespians join
him in “Going Up,” a number in which they envision themselves as
acclaimed performers.
Carney is disappointed to learn the group will be doing a play
he’s never heard of, “Salome,” but is appeased when he learns
he’ll be playing John the Baptist, whom he considers “the first Roman
Catholic priest, practically.”
After reading the play, however, Carney is appalled and calls a
special Sodality meeting at which the monsignor tells Byrne the production is
canceled. Even before this, though, Byrne has been questioning his life. In
“Man in the Mirror,” he wonders “Why should someone care for you
when you care so little for yourself?” and he sees “the dead eyes of
a man who doesn’t know who he is.” He conjures up Wilde (Keating in
flamboyant purple cape and hat) for a personal conversation, asking him,
“Who is this man with the thickening body riding his bus till his dying
day?”
His awakening causes him to advise his play’s Salome (Sally
Murphy), who is pregnant by a man who doesn’t love her, not to hold back,
singing, “You just have to love who you love. … Who can tell you who
to want? Who can tell you what you’re meant to be? … Then just go and
love who you love.”
But when Byrne decides to follow this advice, encouraged by Wilde
who tells him, “the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to
it,” he makes an advance on a young man and ends up beaten and robbed.
Only then does he begin to find a life that balances art and reality.
The show’s theme has echoes in McNally’s life. The
playwright is openly homosexual and was raised Catholic, although in Texas
rather than Ireland. He found himself in trouble with church authorities, or
more specifically the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and other
Christian groups, for his 1998 play “Corpus Christi,” which featured
a gay Christlike figure who had sex with his disciples (offstage).
While controversy over homosexuality might have been expected in
1964 Dublin, 1998 New York City proved the topic could still generate heat.
After the Manhattan Theatre Club, a respected off-Broadway theatrical company,
announced it was staging “Corpus Christi” as part of its season,
protests from religious groups began. Theater officials even received death
threats, causing them to announce the play’s cancellation. Immediately New
York’s artistic community rose up with cries of censorship and the
importance of protecting artistic freedom. The Manhattan Theatre Club
reinstated the play, which sold out before it opened -- under tight security
and to mixed-to-rotten reviews, proving once again that controversy can be good
for business.
No protesters have shown up for “A Man of No
Importance,” which nevertheless was playing to a full, appreciative house.
Through the intimacy of an off-Broadway theater and the simplicity of staging,
which amounts to little more than some straight chairs, a couple of tables and
a few props, I felt a part of the St. Imelda’s group and their
let’s-put-on-a-play enthusiasm. The humor of the lyrics and the uplifting
Irish lilt in the music added to the fun.
In the closing song, “Welcome to the World,” Alfie sings
of having watched the world roll past for too long. “Life is clearly
something I can’t rehearse. … I am in the world and that should be
enough and that’s all I have to say.” And that’s all he needs to
say. He doesn’t have to be a man of great importance. He’s a man who
knows who he is, and that, indeed, is enough.
Retta Blaney’s latest book, Working on the Inside:
The Spiritual Life Through the Eyes of Actors, will be published next
year by Sheed & Ward.
For more information
Lincoln Center
Theater
(212) 239-6200
www.lct.org
National Catholic Reporter, November 15,
2002
|
|
