The Bronx-born playwright John Patrick Shanley investigates his Irish roots in Outside Mullingar, now in its West Coast premiere (after a 2014 Broadway run). In a program note, Shanley admitted that for much of his life he had tried hard to avoid being labeled an Irish-American writer. “I wanted to write about everybody,” he said. “And for the next 30 years, I did.”
Then in 1993, he made a pilgrimage to Ireland with his aged father, who wanted to re-connect with his birthplace. In the farmhouse where his father had grown up, Shanley listened to his Irish family talk. “I recognized that this was my Atlantis, the lost and beautiful world of my poet’s heart.”
The writing of Mullingar came out of that experience (“I kind of erupted with language. I felt free suddenly, free to be Irish”). The play’s use of language is, indeed, impressive and exhilarating: the four characters in the play are never at a loss for words, never far from a quip or an aphorism. Some of what they have to say is blarney; much of it is poetic and witty. Outside Mullingar doesn’t have much of a story. The first act, set in Killucan, Ireland (2008), deals with a property squabble. Aoife Muldoon (Robin Pearson Rose) has just buried her husband. Aoife’s neighbor, Tony Reilly (Jarlath Conroy), invites the widow for tea. As the rain pelts down on Reilly’s farmhouse (atmospheric set by Anthony T. Fanning), the old man tries to persuade her to sell him a piece of her property, on the grounds that she won’t be able to work it herself. Aoife rejects the deal, reminding him that her husband had deeded the plot to her daughter Rosemary (Jessica Collins). The banter between them is, of course, pungent and profane. The same goes for the conversation between Tony and his 42-year-old son Anthony (Dan Donohue), who is a bit of an oddball, unmarried and melancholic. Tony can’t understand why Anthony doesn’t marry Rosemary, who is also single and in her 40s, and give him an heir. The second act takes place in Rosemary’s adjoining farmhouse, where she and Anthony confront each other in a long scene which shifts the play’s focus from land to love. Rosemary has long lusted after Anthony from afar and can’t understand why, after all these years, he hasn’t made even so much as a pass at her. Perhaps he’s gay or impotent or a virgin. Shanley’s best writing is on display in this scene: the coming together of these two ugly ducklings is orchestrated in a masterful way. Each slowly opens up to the other, reveals their innermost fears and secrets. It’s all very tender, romantic, sentimental and quite funny as well–the work of a masterful playwright. The same adjective can be applied to the actors’ work and to Randall Arney’s direction.
