Lonesome West

from wnctheatre,
http://wnctheatre.livejournal.com/
BG--

The Lonesome West is the final play in the Connemara Trilogy by Martin McDonagh, and was directed by Lloyd Kay at the Studio Theater at HART. Kay has directed the other two plays of the trilogy as well over the past several years.

Overall I found the play to be quite entertaining and engaging, but there is something a little off. I am inclined to think the problem is scriptural in nature, but I am not sure if these problems could have been fixed, or at least ameliorated, by different direction. (One thing that most definitely could have helped pacing would have been to tighten the unbearably long [and often silent] scene changes. There were mercifully few of them, but each lasted close to a full minute.) The two main characters, brothers Valene (Rick Sibley) and Coleman Connor (Steve Crider), have a quarrelsome relationship to say the very least. Constantly bickering, with the bickering often escalating into physical fights, a good 50-60% of the play is sort of like an Irish episode of Jerry Springer with significantly better written dialogue and many more teeth. They definitely have some hilarious zingers, but after a while, I was wanting and waiting for a point or a purpose, and couldn’t quite find one. They have a slight redemption arc towards the end of the play, but, all told, they end up right where they started for all I can tell. In something like No Country for Old Men, for example, the character’s lack of redemption was a vehicle for social commentary, so it had a larger purpose. It is possible that the same sort of thing was the goal here; I’m not certain. Perhaps the whole play is meant as a Great Gatsby-esque setting snapshot more than as a strict narrative. Perhaps it fits better if you've seen the other two plays of the trilogy, which I've not.

Performances were all solid, stand-outs probably being Crider as Coleman and Trinity Smith as Girleen. I thought the male roles were cast a bit too old, mainly because Coleman brags about an imaginary tryst with Girleen, who is supposed to be seventeen years old. Maybe I'm being stodgy but I found it a little odd, and it took me out of the moment. Maybe it would have helped if they hadn't also put Girleen in pigtails, thereby making her look even more childlike. Michael Boulos as Father Welsh definitely would have been a little more believable as a younger man, as - among other reasons - Girleen comes to have romantic feelings for him. I'm not saying it's out of the realm of possibility for it to have happened, but the tone of their relationship suggested that the role was meant to be played by someone closer to her age. Father Welsh and Girleen do have a rather sweet, poignant scene together at the top of Act 2, though, which was much needed in the midst of all the fighting and “feck”ing. In fact, generally speaking, I found their secondary storyline and characters quite a bit more intriguing than the primary thrust of the play.