It Makes Our Livers Ache: The Seafarer @ Seattle Rep
Conor McPherson's The Seafarer (Seattle Rep, Weds.-Sun., 7:30, Sat. & Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $15-$59) is host to a whole series of contradictions, not the least of which is that, after spending two hours watching a bunch of middle-aged Irishmen drink themselves nearly to death, we left the theatre thinking that we could really use a whiskey on the rocks. But that's just part of the charm of the piece, we suppose. After all, McPherson was a famously self-destructive drunk until he cleaned himself up after nearly dying at age 30, yet he wrote a play in which seemingly the characters' only redeeming characteristic is their balls-to-the-walls alcoholism. And redemption is precisely what they need, seeing as how the Devil himself has come to collect his due, which merely adds another layer of contradiction, as McPherson's also a non-believer.
Sean R. Griffin as Richard and Russell Hodgkinson as Ivan in "The Seafarer." Photo by Chris Bennion.
The play opens in the mid-2000s in a slightly ramshackle house in Baldoyle, an ancient little enclave north of Dublin, on the morning of Christmas Eve. "Sharky" Harkin (Hans Altwies), in his mid-forties, wanders downstairs half-dressed into the carnage of the living room: empty beer cans cover nearly every surface and are scattered across the floor, the byproduct of his older brother Richard's (who happens to be passed out in front of the fireplace) nightly binge. Since Richard recently was rendered blind in an accident, Sharky's returned from an upcountry job as a driver, ostensibly to take care of his brother. "Ostensibly" because, true to form, Sharky's fucked up another situation (this time via a dalliance with his boss's wife), his return as much due to unemployment as fraternal obligation.
While the host of characters in the play represent a more or less sad lot, Sharky's perhaps the worst--or at least most representative of their myriad failings. Despite his otherwise pleasant demeanor, Sharky's a mean drunk, prone to fights and violence, banned from virtually every pub in town and unable to find work on any fishing boat. A brawl a couple days earlier, to say nothing of the upcountry debacle, have convinced him it's time to go sober, and he's been dry for two whole days, something his brother (played by Sean R. Griffin) can't seem to forgive him for.
Richard's living in filth (he smells bad and frequently uses the bathroom floor for wont of finding the toilet), a condition aided and abetted by his unrelenting boozing, which tends to infect anyone near him. Shortly after the play opens and Sharky finds him sleeping on the floor because he couldn't make it upstairs, their old friend Ivan (Russell Hodgkinson) comes stumbling downstairs, his regular visit to check up on Richard having turned into an all-night bender.
If it all sounds unrelentingly depressing, it is, a condition only slightly leavened by the play's black humor. The story unfolds over roughly 24 hours, from Christmas Eve morning till the next dawn, during which the characters, led mostly by a blind man (symbolism? hmm...) drink constantly, except for Sharky, who holds out for most of the play before succumbing. Ivan and Richard start the play sneaking swigs of Powers whiskey in the morning, come back from a shopping trip having gotten sloppy at a pub, and spend the night gambling with Nicky Giblin (Shawn Telford), a bit of a swell who's taken Sharky's ex--marriages and girlfriends and bills be damned.
(L-R): Sean G. Griffin as Richard, Shawn Telford as Nicky, Russell Hodgkinson as Ivan and Frank Corrado as Mr. Lockhart in "The Seafarer." Photo by Chris Bennion.
Like we said, these are some unlikeable people, the protagonist being a murderer so prone to sousing that he's forgotten it, a group of people capable of producing an earthly hell of such proportions that in the hours before the Christmas morning sun rises even the Devil finds himself stumblingly drunk, barely able to keep to his dark purposes. It should be unbearably bleak, but not only is McPherson's script quite funny, the Rep has produced a pair of stunning leads in Altwies and Griffin, the latter of whom is the real show-stealer, stumbling about, spitting out curses in his charming brogue ("Fuckin' eejit!" is a favored motif). For our money, Ivan was played a little too much for laughs, but we don't have much problem with Hodgkinson's performance. Telford's Giblin is the most minor character in the show, and his performance is fine. Playing the Devil is always tricky, and Corrado fleshes out the role by managing all the wicked attractiveness of the great deceiver while avoiding the tired cliches. By the end, with the stage littered with another night's debauchery, cans being kicked into the audience, a few cases of beer having been tapped, along with a few bottles of whiskey and a nasty bit of moonshine, you're mostly sitting there impressed by the hepatic fortitude of these fictional characters.
The thing we didn't like about the script itself was that it left us feeling as though the Rep had chosen another coming-to-terms-with-stuff story about the power of brotherly love, the sort of cheesiness that's left them with a mostly bust season. The play was, in a sense, saved by the actors, who manage to be horrible but sympathetic--a leap no less Herculean that the Walpurgisnacht they perform. The only problem we still have, at the risk of sounding pedantic, is that in the effort to find the essential human goodness at the bottom of a well of despair, the playwright comes close (and perhaps even crosses into) excusing inexcusable behavior. Sharky is a murderer, after all, and the idea that he could have some positive future and suffer no consequences for his actions is actually kind of troubling.
And it's not just Sharky. In the course of the play, Ivan alienates his wife (to say nothing of the fact that he, too, has a deal with the Devil and may have some blood on his hands), Nicky risks alienating his girlfriend (in both cases there are also children involved), and Richard's blindness is clearly due in one way or another to his drinking. These are characters whose self-destructive impulses leave a trail of human carnage behind them, both literally and figuratively. To put such caustic destructiveness in religious terms threatens to cheapen the human cost of it; making this a play about sin and redemption distracts from the issues of guilt and culpability, something the characters have aplenty and which cannot be abrogated through a single hand of cards.
But despite our reservations about what point the play ultimately makes, it's still a damn fine piece of theatre, not something you're likely to forget anytime soon. And afterward you can do what we did: head over to a bar on Roy and enjoy a stiff drink or two. Why it made us want to do that, we still haven't sorted out, and frankly, we probably don't want to know.
