Christmas with the Devil

Billy Meleady battles his demons - literally - in The Seafarer. Photos by Mike Lovett.

My friend Art Hennessey and I sometimes ruminate on the problem of assessing the value of plays per se when we can only perceive them through the shifting screen of performance (and no, reading it to yourself in your study is no substitute for performance, all you armchair Shakespeareans). Pompous thing that I am, I like to imagine that I can sense the quality of a text "through" such vagaries - at least to some extent. And while I'm not about to abandon that position (do I ever abandon my positions?), the new SpeakEasy Stage production of Conor McPherson's The Seafarer (now through Dec. 13 at the BCA) does give me some new perspective on the problem.

First, some background. Last year I caught the New York premiere of McPherson's latest, under the direction of the author himself, with a cast which he had (mostly) brought with him from across the pond. The seasoned ensemble fit their roles just about perfectly, and the only actor I had qualms about - TV star David Morse, in the lead - always held up his end of the script, and managed to be quite gripping at its terrible climax. And in retrospect, it's clear that as director, McPherson perceived every weakness in his play - really his first fleshed-out, plot-driven drama - and disguised them well, punching up the action here or there, adding a song, and generally cutting against the material's depressing squalor with spry black humor.

Now perhaps it's unfair to compare a Broadway production to a Boston one - but then again, Scott Edmiston managed a re-thinking of Light in the Piazza that held up well to the New York original, so perhaps it isn't that unfair. And it must be admitted that much of the time, in the SpeakEasy version from director Carmel O'Reilly, The Seafarer is oft at sea, and only a shadow of its Broadway self. In short, this is one of the strongest plays SpeakEasy has done in years, yet it's one of their weaker productions.

True, some of the drama still works - not as devastatingly as it did on Broadway, mind you; but McPherson's spooky little fable about Christmas with the Devil has moments that are powerful enough to be director- and actor-proof, and at these climaxes for the most part O'Reilly stays out of the way. But elsewhere her lack of craft is evident as ever (she ran the ill-fated Súgán Theatre company, whose demise some people have blamed on my negative reviews). Once again, O'Reilly doesn't adequately block her scenes (but spreads her actors across the space at roughly 10-foot intervals), has little sense of pace or dramatic flow, and is generally so earnestly downbeat in her approach that it never occurs to her to cut against the surface of a play; one would never guess, for instance, from this gently dour version, at the wickedly antic tone McPherson brought to his foul first act.

Or maybe this is just a guy thing; maybe a woman could never perceive that alcoholism can be fun (although something tells me some women perceive that only too well!). But that cynical perception is key to The Seafarer - the lost souls drifting on a sea of spirits in McPherson's dingy flat are literally blind with drink, but they're that way because they enjoy it, and without that spark of pleasure the first act seems meandering and repetitious (because, perhaps, McPherson's dramaturgy is sometimes rather rough carpentry; prior to this he has written extended monologues). Only the central character, Sharky (Billy Meleady), is resisting the siren call of the bottle, and he's battling his demons with little support from his blinded brother Richard (Bob Colonna), or his nearly-daft neighbor Ivan (Larry Coen), who can only focus on scoring another wee drop as they slouch toward a particularly pathetic Christmas Eve.

But then a real demon shows up, in the person of Mr. Lockhart, a friendly chap who's stopped in for a card game. Only the suave stranger is hardly what he seems, and what's at stake in the last hand depends on a promise Sharky made long ago, in a prison cell - and the only thing he has to throw in the kitty this time is his mortal soul. It's a neat, time-tested set-up, and McPherson's sure touch somehow makes it all credible; the lights flicker once or twice, Mr. Lockhart hints at knowledge no human could possess, and we're suddenly transported back to the campfires of our youth, spellbound by tales of encounters with Old Nick. What gives this pitch fresh punch, of course, is its haunting resonance with Sharky's alcoholism, and his guilt at how it has ruined his life. He deserves to lose his soul - he's all but thrown it away anyhow - and he knows it. And Lockhart's vision of the cold loneliness of Hell is as utterly familiar to him as it is to anyone who's turned to the bottle for comfort (as McPherson, himself a former alcoholic, knows well).

It's these postcards from the afterlife, in fact, that make The Seafarer so memorable; soliloquy is McPherson's forte, and this time he's given the devil more than his due - Satan's evocation of not an inferno but a frozen waste, where the soul is confined forever in a space smaller than a coffin, may give you nightmares at least until Christmas. But what's most striking about this vision of the damned is its sense of desolate loss, its forlorn solitude. What makes Hell hell, Lockhart (or "locked-heart") insists, is that there's no one there to love you - just as there's no one to love the alcoholic - and we suddenly feel sympathy for the Devil when we perceive he feels nothing more keenly than his own loss of God. "Why does he love you, and not me?" he hisses, and his eternal hatred of all things human suddenly seems all too natural, and darkly tragic.

Or rather it would, except that director O'Reilly has made the mistake of casting her old colleague Derry Woodhouse as Lockhart; Mr. Woodhouse has his resources, but his essential gentleness is almost the polar opposite of what we expect from Old Scratch, and his (admittedly creepy) soft-spokenness makes him come off as a possible child molester, not a fallen angel. Compounding this problem is that as Sharky, the talented Billy Meleady (left, with Woodhouse) gives such a recessed performance that we never even guess at the springs of affection which could still redeem him from his fate. The rest of the cast is on firmer footing, although they can only support, not save, the play, and even here none of the performances had fully cohered by press night. As the blind and stingingly funny Richard, Bob Colonna gives probably the most satisfying performance, although he was hampered by memory problems and relied on a certain generically irascible attitude; still, I felt as his interpretation grew more lived-in and specific it could mature into something memorable. The reliable Larry Coen was likewise halfway there as the dazed, dorky Ivan; Coen understood the role, but hadn't yet spun it into the shambling piece of whimsy it has the potential to become. Meanwhile, as fifth wheel Nicky, Ciaran Crawford seemed competent and looked just right, but again hadn't begun to explore the feckless vanity of this seedy ladies' man.

The physical production was likewise slightly uninspired. Perhaps sensing the menace gap in the central role, sound designer Benjamin Emerson leaned heavily on the old whistling-wind sound effects, and lighting designer John Malinowski piled on the spooky lighting cues. J. Michael Griggs had a fairly good idea in suggesting Hell via a boarded-up, empty attic, but in spreading his set across the breadth of the Roberts Studio he inadvertently contributed to the show's lack of focus. Perhaps these all sound like small things. But I'm afraid with this play, the devil really is in the details.