Playwright: Enda Walsh. At: A Red Orchid Theater, 1531 N. Wells. Phone: 312-943-8722; $25-$30. Runs through: March 6
Maybe it's just the selection of plays that are exported to the United States, but American audiences might be forgiven the impression that in Ireland, it is always pre-1962, that its citizens live exclusively in remote villages serviced by mid-1930s technology, and that all its women are either unmarried or widowed, but unanimous in their quiet suffering amid both social and geographical isolation. We Yankee chicks had Betty Frieden and Helen Gurley Brown to awaken us to new possibilitiesremember that word, by the waybut in this island nation, we are given to understand, there is nothing to prevent its female population rusting away like discarded farm machinery.
The crazy ladies in Enda Walsh's contribution to the genre are the sisters Ada, Breda and Clara ( A, B, and Cget it? ) . Adaat 40, the youngest of the trioworks a desk job in the town's fishing industry where, years earlier, Breda and Clara entered the dance club of the title, returning home that same night never to venture forth again. Since misery loves company, when retellings of the incident with which the elder siblings reaffirm their decision fail to persuade Ada to share in their seclusion, they invite local fishmonger Patsy to take part in a charade designed to prove, beyond doubt, that the possibilities offered by the outside world lead only to unbearable disappointment.
In the beginning, however, we have no inkling of the gloom in store for us. Tragedy is customarily performed at a slow tempo, but Walsh greets us with Clara reciting the sorority oath at warp speed with, literally, her face to the wall. And just when we think we've stumbled upon Lucky's speech in Waiting For Godot, the dialogue screeches to a Pinteresque halt, followed by Patsy bursting in with a tub of Ionesco-expressionist mackerel. And this is before Clara and Breda, attired in vintage glad-rags from circa 1958, dress up their gentleman caller in the suit once worn by the Man What Done Them Wrong ( sharkskin, naturally ) .
Fortunately, this Red Orchid production boasts an ensemble of character actors as deft with neo-absurdist fare as with nose-to-the-dirt realism. Under Robin Witt's razor-edge direction, Kate Buddeke, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Laurie Larson and Guy Van Swearingen deliver performances cutting to the core of Walsh's often-precious wordplay to reveal the unspoken anguish simmering beneath the peaceful surface that continues to embody the Irish ethos.