First things first! Before I delve into the Irish Repertory Theater’s marvelous production of London Assurance by Dublin-born playwright Dion Boucicault (1820-1890), which runs through February 9, 2020, I must say that the award-winning Irish Rep is a gift from heaven. Their choices, consistently so, of what to produce, along with the actors they choose to cast, is simply wonderful. And this wonderfulness goes for their use of top-of-the-line set, costume, lighting, sound, and hair and wig designers for each play. Each and every production is a joyous event. I have never left either of their two intimate theaters without having been put in touch with my own humanity, be it tears or laughter or both. Or for that matter being enlarged as a human being. No doubt this touching of one’s heartstrings is an Irish thing, a deeply ingrained trait if you will. For those questioning such gushing: No, this is not a paid advertisement. It is a fact! Like those of his characters in London Assurance, Boucicault’s life as an actor, theater producer, and playwright was a wild ride. Among his twists and turns were two bankruptcies, a scandal or two, and three marriages. Anne Guiot, his first wife, much older than Boucicault, died in a Swiss mountaineering accident in 1845, the first year of their marriage. In 1853 he eloped to New York City with twenty-year old actress Agnes Kelley Robertson. They eventually became American citizens in 1873. Boucicault suddenly left Agnes and their six children for twenty-one-year old Josephine Louise Thorndyke, whom he married in Sydney, Australia in 1885. A scandal ensued on both sides of the Atlantic, as his marriage to Agnes was still valid. It was eventually dissolved by reason of “bigamy with adultery” in 1888. Along the way, the ever-prolific Boucicault managed to write over 125 plays, many of which he acted in to great acclaim on Broadway, in cities across the country, and in Australia and London. Boucicault was instrumental in passing the first U.S. copyright law for drama in 1853, and he staged the first-ever matinee performance a year later. As the theater program tell us, this period introduced several of the playwright’s most beloved works, including The Poor of New York, The Octoroon (the first play to treat seriously the black American population), and The Colleen Bawn, along with major technical innovations in stagecraft, including trap doors and fireproof scenery. His last play, A Tale of a Coat ran for a month in 1890 at Daly’s Theater on Broadway the same year the he died. His final resting place is Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-On-Hudson, Westchester County, New York. First produced in Convent Garden in 1841, London Assurance, a farcical comedy of manners here directed by Charlotte Moore, is the cleverest and most enjoyable play to open this year. Its linguistic wordplay makes it a precursor to the plays of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), as speechifying characters not only tell each other (and the audience) everything that they are thinking but everything they would like to persuade themselves that they have thought. Often a familiar phrase is used where dignified language would be expected; sometimes the reverse. Boucicault's style as an introduction of words to each other, which have never made acquaintance and which think that they will not get on together, is ingeniously ear-opening. Though the playwright’s embroidery of language, hand tailored with much thought and observation on culture and class, fits each character like a glove, it is in each actor’s letter-perfect delivery where the fireworks reside. It is no accident that shards of Oscar Wilde’s wit, sharp satire, striking use of language, and keen observation, obviously characteristics shared with Boucicault, permeate London Assurance. Though 34years younger than Boucicault – it seems that the older playwright was friendly with Oscar’s parents – Wilde not only was aware of Boucicault’s plays but had the temerity to send him a copy of Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880) his own very first play. “You have dramatic powers but have not shaped your subject perfectly before beginning it,” Boucicault responded. He suggested that “a chain of incidents,” not mere dialogue, should “lead from one to the other” of the main events of the play. A couple of years later, in a letter to a mutual friend, he writes that Oscar “…might make a fair income – if better managed – reduce his hair and take his legs out of the last century.” The premise of London Assurancerevolves around the sixty-something Sir Harcourt Courtly’s (Colin McPhillamy) impending engagement to 18-year old Grace Harkaway (Caroline Strang), a young girl some forty years his junior. It seems that her dead father’s will stipulated (inexplicably) that if she refuses to marry Harcourt, the estate goes to Harcourt’s son Charles (Ian Holcomb). If Grace does marry him, something she has already resigned herself to, her formidable dowry, as well as her life, becomes the property of Harcourt. In short, as both parties frequently comment on, it is an arranged marriage based economics. As Harcourt tells it, he has seen her “bankers account” and looks forward to the 15,000 pounds annually that this marriage will give him. The ever rationalizing and pragmatic Grace, adding a whiff of hope to her situation, states that the “gentleman swears eternal devotion to the lady’s fortune, and the lady swears she will outlive him still.” While Sir Harcourt’s character, brilliantly played to a fare-thee-well by Colin McPhillamy’s – with delicious eye-popping doubletakes, physical and facial contortions, and abrupt changes of mind – elicits the most laughter, every character, has their own hilarious star turn. The play begins at the London home of Harcourt with light banter between Harcourt’s tipsy son and a newly found friend Dazzle (Craig Wesley Divino) who brings him home from a night on the town. Small talk about marriage takes place between Harcourt’s friend and Grace’s uncle Max Harkaway (Brian Keane). Also, on stage is the annoying presence of Mark Meddle (Evan Zes), a slimy and devious, non-stop-talking lawyer, eager to make a fast buck by selling information he claims to know. With conversation at a lull, everybody leaves for Harkaway’s country estate to get the engagement underway. It is here that we first meet the lovely Grace, Harcourt’s intended to be, and the lusty, uber-wonderful breath of fresh air, Lady Gay Spanker (Rachel Pickup) – she actually carries a whip – and her equally wonderful, all accepting, and possibly gay husband, Adolphus Spanker (Robert Zukerman), who follows her around like a puppy. In no time at all, with a good deal of double-dealing intrigue, spying on each other, clever repartee and audience-delivered asides, all hell breaks loose. Harcourt falls in with Lady Gay. Grace and Harcourt Jr fall in love, and the shifty-eyed Meddle, eager to fill his pockets anyway he can, attempts to blackmail just everybody in sight. All I can say is watching the unraveling and reweaving of everybody’s life, is a satisfying hoot, one that had the audience, myself included, leaving the theater with a big smile on our faces.
