Two great reviews: Modesto Bee and Stockton Record Cruelty, kindness take stage in startling 'Inishmaan' comedy By LEO STUZIN MODESTO BEE ARTS EDITOR (Published: November 21, 2000) SONORA -- Gifts of love don't always come with bright wrappings and cheery cards announcing the identity of the giver. In "The Cripple of Inishmaan," which is making a heartwarming and heartbreaking debut at Stage 3 Theatre, those gifts are so well disguised that they seldom seem like anything a sane person would care to receive. Dramatically, they are concealed beneath casual cruelties in words and actions; theatrically, they are hidden beneath a torrent of raucous Irish humor that has kept audiences roaring around the world. Saturday's nearly full house at Stage 3 was no exception.

Michael Rosa as "Cripple Billy"

The dark comedy was the fourth hit in two years for playwright Martin McDonagh, who was 27 when it opened.

Born in England to Irish parents, McDonagh bowled over London critics and theatergoers in 1996 with his first works, a jarring but wildly funny trilogy set in west Ireland.

One year later he came back with another trilogy, set on the Aran Islands, storm-tossed outcrops just off Ireland's western coast. The works solidified his place as the most distinctive young voice in English-language theater.

"The Cripple of Inishmaan" introduced the Aran trilogy. Since its London premiere, it has been staged from New York to Sydney, usually winning cheers for its wit, craftsmanship and insights into the human mind and heart.

The play revolves around 18-year-old Billy Claven, called "Cripple Billy" by friends and neighbors. The year is 1934, decades before we banished such words from polite conversation.

Very little is rendered in polite terms in Billy's circle, where visible tenderness rarely surfaces. Desperate needs produce extraordinary gestures of kindness, but are rarely accompanied by words that expose the benefactors as soft or sentimental.

Even 60ish sisters Kate and Eileen (Hilah Elkins and Dorothy Mulvihill, in artfully flinty performances), who have raised Billy since infancy, are far more likely to decry his dreaminess than to indulge it. They took over his upbringing after his parents died in a small-boat accident.

Johnnypateenmike (a ebullient Stephen Daly), chief gossipmonger in a village that seems to feed on caustic gossip, has few good words for Billy. No matter. What he did for the young man comes out late in the play, leading to a conclusion that can be likened to O. Henry, without sappiness.

And the island's young people revel in petty nastiness, to each other and to Billy. Helen (Tara Cayton, looking angelic while acting devilish) provokes and scorns his romantic impulses; younger brother Bartley (Dan Miller, aptly dull-witted) sums up local sensitivities in this exchange:

Billy: "You shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes, Bartley."

Bartley, without rancor: "Why?"

Stockton theater standout Michael Rosá delivers a stunning performance as Billy, radiating innocence and hope while struggling around the stage with a deformed left arm and leg. The figure he shapes is genuinely heroic, with strength to persevere and dream despite blows suffered since birth.

Dave Lehman and Bill Zachman make strong contributions as a boat-builder and a doctor, respectively. Both roles are steeped in sympathy, tempered by irony.

The tale's catalytic event is historically true: the arrival at neighboring Inishmore of American filmmaker Robert Flaherty to record the lives of fishermen and farmers on these bleak specks of land.

Flaherty's Oscar-winning "Man of Aran" portrayed them as heroic survivors of a struggle with nature, and was considered a masterpiece of documentary film until cooler eyes exposed Flaherty's penchant for creating romantic fictions.

In "The Cripple of Inishmaan," McDonagh stands romantic fiction on its ear, with acid humor and deep humanity. And Stage 3, under Don Bilotti's fine direction, has brought it to life grandly.

Superb acting makes 'Inishmaan'
a rewarding theatrical destination

By Sherman Spencer*
Special to The Record
(Published: November 20, 2000)

Life seemed serenely uneventful in 1934 on Inishmaan, a tiny island off the coast of Ireland. There, the selection of some penny candy could take hours, and the big news one day was that someone's goose bit a cat. But as Martin McDonagh illustrates in his play "The Cripple of Inishmaan," now in a beguiling production at Sonora's Stage 3 Theatre, beneath that tranquil exterior lay a welter of tangled emotions and thwarted dreams.

A speck of stony outcrop, one of the three Aran Islands, Inishmaan is home for a small population of tough, surly inhabitants who, in this dark comedy, have developed bickering banter into an art form. The amenities of polite conversation are abandoned for a comic frankness that calls the proverbial spade by its generic name, but with a captivating Irish lilt.

One day, something does happen. A director from Hollywood comes to the neighboring island to film a documentary on the native fishing industry. This might be Cripple Billy's big chance to escape his humdrum life on Inishmaan.

Now a young man, Billy (Michael Rosá), crippled from birth and orphaned from infancy, was reared by two elderly women who run a small grocery store.

Eileen (Dorothy Mulvihill) and Kate (Hilah Elkins) care deeply for Billy and make allowances for his perceived eccentricities but have little understanding of his emotional problems.

Billy, with two young friends, Bartley (Dan Miller) and Helen (Tara Cayton), watch the filming, and Billy is taken back to Hollywood for a screen test. His departure from Inishmaan serves as a catalyst for resentments among those left at home and, for a time, alters their carefully maintained equilibrium.

This is a play peopled by marvelous characters and firmly in the tradition of delightful Irish wordplay.

And this production is perfectly cast. Well, maybe Rosá is a bit too handsome to play a man with no physical appeal. Still, his crippled walk is totally convincing as is his characterization of a man with a tormented soul imprisoned in a damaged body.

Mulvihill and Elkins score as the only really good-hearted people we meet.

Cayton, as Helen, is alternately, winning and viciously mean-spirited in her relationship to Billy. She constantly bullies her not-too-bright brother, sympathetically played by Miller.

The odd couple, superbly performed, are Johnnypateenmike (Stephen Daly), the town gossip, and his aged mother (Terry Richardson). She is trying to drink herself to death, and he is making an effort to assist in her endeavor. Dave Lehman convincingly plays Babbybobby, a mysterious fisherman, and Bill Zachman is good as the local doctor.

The show is a triumph of fine ensemble playing. Much of the narrative's effectiveness depends on meaningful pauses, facial expressions and tones of voice and this cast doesn't miss a beat.

The standing ovation awarded by the near-capacity crowd Saturday was certainly warranted.

Don Bilotti directed with obvious understanding of the play's purpose and made its 2¹/_²-hour length seem to move by very quickly.

This is an unusual, but deeply moving, show. Its theme and language are adult, but its message of love, tolerance and understanding iscertainly suitable holiday fare.

*To reach Sherman Spencer, e-mail him at features@recordnet.com

For reservations or information, please call 209-536-1778, or e-mail info@stage3.org.