Hugh Pugh (Peter Maloney) tries to teach Rob McNulty (Rufus Collins) a lesson in drab revival (photo © Carol Rosegg)
Irish Repertory Theatre
DR2 Theatre
103 East 15th St. between Irving Pl. & Park Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 15, $70
212-727-2737
www.irishrep.org
Something magical happens during the Irish Rep’s revival of John McManus’s The Quare Land. Unfortunately, it’s not the play itself but a bit of mysterious stagecraft. Star Peter Maloney spends the entire show in a cast-iron bathtub — and the bubbles never go away during the ninety minutes. I don’t know which brand of bubbles he uses, but I can’t get the bubbles in my bath to stay afloat for more than a handful of minutes. Otherwise, The Quare Land is a rather ordinary work that offers no new takes on a familiar story. Maloney plays the silly-named Hugh Pugh, an old farmer living in a ramshackle house on the Irish countryside in County Cavan. (The wonderful set is by Charlie Corcoran.) Pugh is relaxing in the tub with his rubber ducky, listening to Bobby Darin on his ancient phonograph, enjoying beer he retrieves via a complex pulley system that brings him bottles from inside a filthy toilet, when the well-dressed Rob McNulty (Rufus Collins) shows up unannounced and walks into the bathroom. McNulty is a real-estate developer who wants to purchase land from Pugh that he didn’t even know he owned, in order to turn a nine-hole golf course into an eighteen-holer to attract professional events. McNulty assumes the sale is a slam dunk, but he can barely get a word in edgewise as Pugh shares stories from his life nonstop, cannily dodging McNulty’s best efforts. The play, directed by Ciaran O’Reilly, starts out well enough, but as it continues, it grows more and more annoying, the plot turning into a stale retread of such films as The Field and Local Hero, except neither character here turns out to be very likable. The play is billed as a “Cantankerous Comedy,” and cantankerous it is, but not in the intended way. Maloney (Outside Mullingar) and Collins (The Royal Family) give fine performances, but the sour script ultimately lets them down. Now, about those bubbles….