Sometimes, an unruly prop serves as a reminder of the fragility of the theater experience.
By Bill Marx
Sometimes, an unruly prop serves as a reminder of the fragility of the theater experience, an affecting intimation of the intersection of the real world and illusion on stage. Last Sunday, during the Nora Theatre Company’s production of Conor McPherson’s “Dublin Carol,” an overloaded coat rack fell over, twice. The actors ad-libbed with ease as they picked up the clothing. At first, the sight brought a knowing smile, but it eventually lodged in the mind as something other than a tussle with recalcitrant furniture.
The production has more going for it than light-footed timber. It is a welcome departure for McPherson, who is best known for writing monologues, such as “The Weir” and “St. Nicholas.” These pieces, for all their intensity, emphasize story-telling over dramatic conflict: the stage becomes an earnest confessional rather than the site for unruly contention. This vision of theater as a form of spiritual expiation is made explicit in “Dublin Carol,” an O’Neillian exercise in Irish Catholic guilt. It is Christmas Eve and an alcoholic middle-aged undertaker, John Plunkett, learns from his estranged daughter that his long-suffering wife is dying. Thankfully, Plunkett doesn’t take center stage and recount his story of sin and resurrection: he interacts with a young man temporarily helping out at the funeral home, as well as with his daughter, who wants him to visit his wife before she dies.
Since Plunkett’s attenuated relationships are rooted in regret for his failings as a father and husband, it makes sense to bring him into contact with others and the possibility of forgiveness. McPherson also dovetails Plunkett’s isolation with his fear of death, which he tries to control with booze, his relationship with a woman who abets his self-destruction, and his job in a funeral home. Out of self-disgust, Plunkett has created a living hell for himself: his wife’s illness represents a chance for him to wiggle out of self-damnation. This is familiar ‘fallen man’ ground, every inch covered by film and theater, from “The Lost Weekend” to “Moon for the Misbegotten.” McPherson’s play, with its symbolic hints of the sacred in the profane, is an honorable, but hardly revelatory, addition to the territory.
But, as Plunkett, McElvain gives the kind minutely detailed performance you don’t see very often. Raised on TV or Hollywood, the typical actor treats his or her character with a broad brush, settling for creating a distinctive voice, perhaps one or two unusual physical moves. In contrast, McElvain builds Plunkett out of a mountain of fascinating tics and sighs, from Plunkett’s rush of breath, often a barely articulated syllable, after he finishes downing a shot, to the caved-in curve of his posture. McElvain’s calculation can, at times, be off-putting: the wheels are always turning. But it is a finely calibrated and textured turn from an actor who knows the indispensable value of the minimal.
As for the tipsy coat rack, it was the revenge of the uncalculated on the schematic, a reminder of how the spontaneity of life can invade the neat illusion of the stage. Given the predictability of McPherson’s script, the accidental thumps of the rack on the floor were strangely moving.
