Theatre in Review: The Songs I Love So Well (Irish Repertory Theatre)

	Phil Coulter. Photo: Carol Rosegg

Contra the old show business saw, Phil Coulter is a man who needs an introduction -- at least to American audiences -- and, in The Songs I Love So Well, he gets a dilly. The show opens with a video sequence featuring Sinead O'Connor, the politician John Hume, Billy Connolly, Van Morrison, Tim Rice, Bishop Edward Daly, and Liam Neeson, all testifying to Coulter's central place in modern Irish culture. Indeed, Coulter is a kind of éminence grise of Irish pop -- a songwriter, producer, arranger, and performer who has left an indelible mark on the industry. (O'Connor says she wouldn't even think of recording with anyone else.)

Given such endorsements, you may be surprised by the evening of easy-listening piano pieces that follows -- a mixed program of his past hits, a few traditional airs, and some Christmas carols. These are presented in carefully groomed arrangements of the sort you might expect from someone whose biggest-selling albums are Classic Tranquility and Sea of Tranquility. Frankly, after about 15 minutes, I began to drift on my own personal sea of tranquility. When he announced that his wife, Geraldine Branagan, a recording artist and former Eurovision contestant would join him on stage, I hoped we might get a welcome burst of vitality, but no -- she gave us a rather becalmed version of "Silent Night."

Coulter is an affable man of uncertain years, dapper and eager to please, with an appealingly raspy singing voice that is reminiscent of Johnny Cash. He has some amusing stories to tell -- of the time he knocked the Pope off the top of the pop charts (an only-in-Ireland phenomenon, that), or when playing a gig at The Guildhall in Derry, Ireland (his hometown), he once hid under his piano from an IRA attack, only to be approached by an autograph hound. He also does a pretty good Jimmy Durante imitation.

He does stray into slightly darker territory with "Scorn Not His Simplicity," written when he learned his first child had Down's syndrome, and there is his signature hit, "The Town I Loved so Well," which starts out in conventionally sentimental manner and then turns surprisingly bitter in its account of a embattled Derry split by religious warfare. (Interestingly,The Songs I Love So Well is being presented on the set, designed by Charlie Corcoran, of the Irish Rep's production of Brian Friel's The Freedom of the City, set in Derry during the violent 1970s. The lighting is by Michael Gottlieb; sound is by Zachary Williamson, video was programmed by Chris Kateff.) The liveliest offering, however, is a medley of some lively '60s-era hits including Floyd Cramer's "On the Rebound" and Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."

In truth, pop music often doesn't travel well. (I say this as a confirmed Francophile who can barely stand to listen to most of that fine country's singers.) That's why I suspect that the audience for The Songs I Love So Well is most likely those Irish Rep subscribers who are already Coulter fans. This may be a not unsubstantial group.) Anyway, it makes a perfectly acceptable holiday placeholder while the Irish Rep prepares its next production. As they say in Ireland, "Nollaig Shona Duit!" -- David Barbour