Theatre in Review: Autumn Royal (Irish Repertory Theatre)

	John Keating, Maeve Higgins. Photo: Carol Rosegg

One look at Charlie Corcoran's set at the Irish Rep and I said to myself, "My God, it looks like a tomb." As it happens, I wasn't far off. The walls are gray, water-stained concrete. A ceiling panel seems to enclose the space, adding a note of claustrophobia. Furnishings are minimal: a table, two chairs, a boom box. Through an upstage right entryway, a thin strand of pale sunlight trickles in. (The excellent Michael Gottlieb is the lighting designer.) All right, I thought, after a moment. It's not a tomb. Maybe the morgue?

In fact, we are in a house in Cork City and Corcoran's non-naturalistic design strikes the right note for this tale of not-so-young siblings trapped in an existential deadlock as firmly as any Samuel Beckett tramp. Fortunately, playwright Kevin Barry is gifted with a tongue that is equally golden and barbed. The fate of May and Timmy would be tragic, almost unbearably so, but for that fact that so much of their dialogue is spiked with bilious hilarity. When it comes to black comedy, it's always a great day for the Irish.

Despite their profoundly bleak surroundings, May and Timmy, thirtysomethings both, are children of the middle class. Neither appears to work; instead, their lives are consumed with caring for their father, who is seemingly dying but stubbornly refuses to seal the deal. Indeed, based on what we hear, he evinces a terrifying vitality; as he stumbles around upstairs, designers Ryan Rumery and Hidenori Nakajo produce earth-shaking tremors matched with plaster falling from above. It might as well be Godzilla convalescing up there.

The siblings' prospects are grim. A poet in retirement -- he spent his life in business -- their father has been stuck on the first line of his latest work for the last six months. (It is not promising.) Tim -- played by rangy, eagle-beaked John Keating -- dreams of Australia and a career in high finance. May -- the tousle-haired, gimlet-eyed Maeve Higgins -- insists she wants out of the house. (In China Lee's apt costume design, she sports a black sequined tank-top, as if to signal that she is in mourning for her life.) Most of the time, May gazes out the window, her lips permanently pressed in disapproval, offering a stream of acid commentary about the neighbors. "The Coynes all had the big, beefy faces," she muses. "Whatever they did wrong in a past life."

Whenever Barry lets his characters indulge their worst instincts, Autumn Royal is robustly entertaining. "Boy of the Hegartys," says Tim about another neighbor. "The fella with the big flat face. You'd play handball off him." May, tangling with an insolent pharmacy clerk, comments on "his little masturbator eyes." And, speaking to her father, she offers a memory of family Sunday drives: "Timmy and me in the back. You drivin' and prayin', drivin' and prayin'. Her [their mother] atein' a bar of lipstick. Padre Pio hangin' off the rearview...The eyes, the black little eyes on the fucker."

When May and Timmy decide it is time to put their father away, Barry has plenty of fun with such augustly named rest homes as "Seaview Lodge," "Whispering Groves," and "Winter Roses Retirement Village." (The winner is the title institution.) But this stab at obtaining their freedom turns disastrous when the old man escapes, sending the hapless siblings into a panic. Never resourceful, Timmy says, "One thing we could do is mobilize our social media accounts." "Timmy," May replies. "You have eleven followers on Twitter."

All this bleak comedy comes with a catch: Barry, a highly awarded novelist and short-story author, is marvelous with dialogue, less so with structure. Ten minutes into Autumn Royal, it is perfectly obvious that May and Timmy aren't going anywhere; after that, there is little to discover about them. To his credit, Barry rolls out a shocking revelation about the unraveling of the parents' marriage -- it involves an act by the father that is both startlingly candid and cruel -- and there is the teasing question of their mother's fate to keep us interested. But there something strangely appropriate about the enormous images of washing machines -- part of Dan Scully's excellent projection design -- that cue the character's interior monologues; for much of the play, we're stuck in the spin cycle.

Still, Barry offers a mordant commentary on the penchant for self-sacrifice and the stifling embrace of bourgeois respectability -- presented as deeply Irish traits -- that have hobbled the characters. And, under the direction of Ciarán O'Reilly, the actors are a treat: Keating, spinning surfing fantasies, listening to motivational lectures, or opening an account on a dating app, provides a vividly etched portrait of a loser. Higgins, offering sibylline pronouncements on the fools whom, she insists, surround her, is equally arresting.

A perfect play? Far from it. But Autumn Royal is filled with strong, distinctive writing and we can thank this fine company for bringing another powerful Irish voice to our attention. --David Barbour