Listen, if you want, you can wear your little leprechaun hat to the theater.
That’s right, the theater.
Because in Philadelphia, there are two Irish-centric theater companies devoted to presenting works from Ireland and the rest of the British Isles. Both, not surprisingly, are staging works in March and one of the theaters actually has a bar.
First the “whats,” and then the “whys.”
The Irish Heritage Theatre Co. presents a full production of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell.” It’s an excerpt from Shaw’s “Man and Superman,” and is not actually set in Ireland. It takes place in Hell, hence the name.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been the devil,” said John Cannon, 86, who co-founded the theater company and will play the devil’s role in the show set to run March 14 through 24 at the Plays & Players Theatre. (He last played the part in 1977).
“It’s a very witty play, and it has a wonderful dialogue and it’s my experience that audiences like it if you do it well,” he said. The play is a four-way conversation among the devil, the great lover Don Juan, his former lover Dona Ana, and her father. Don Juan murdered the father in a duel as he was defending his daughter’s honor.
Meanwhile, a block and a half away at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake, the Inis Nua Theatre Co. will stage the Philadelphia premier of Irish playwright Sonya Kelly’s “Once Upon A Bridge” March 6 through March 24.
This play isn’t set in Ireland either, but is based on a real incident that occurred in May 2017 on the Putney Bridge in London. An English corporate type out for a jog pushes a woman, an Irish lawyer, out of the way and into the path of an oncoming bus. The bus driver, from Senegal, stops in time, but the incident is captured on CCTV and ramifications ensue.
The CCTV footage is part of the play’s setting.
“You get to watch this event happen,” said actor David Pica, who plays the jogger, and who is married to director Brett Ashley Robinson. “You get to hear the story that brings each of the individuals to the day and you get to stay with the three characters in the aftermath of the event.
“These small nothing moments are huge, and we don’t point at them often,”
“We agree to live in these communities together,” Robinson said. “It’s not quite solid. It’s really intricate and really delicate and there are consequences when we push our own personal ambitions. The jogger makes a decision he doesn’t even know he’s making.
“The story doesn’t stop at the moment when a woman [almost] gets hit by a bus,” she said. “We have to live with the consequences – we have to live with the burden and the responsibility.”
Why have plays from Ireland and the rest of the British Isles inspired the founding of not one, but two, theater companies?
“A real revolutionary spirit is coming out of Ireland,” said Kathryn MacMillan, Inis Nua’s artistic director, talking about the nature of the work.
The themes are also important, she said. “The countries of Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales echo the American concerns around immigration, around peaceful immigration. They are talking about those issues in brave and exciting ways and can teach us something about immigration in this country.”
The company’s Irish name, Inis Nua, means New Island and “North America can be a new island for culture from Ireland and the [United Kingdom],” MacMillan said.
“The great Irish playwrights like [Brian] Friel, [Sean] O’Casey, [John Millington] Synge, [Isabella Augusta] Lady Gregory, and Shaw among others (such as more contemporary playwrights like Marina Carr and Conor McPherson) focus on rich language, universal themes, dark humor, deep pathos, fully realized characters and compelling stories,” said Irish Heritage Theatre Company board president Kirsten Quinn.
“This combination results in some amazing theatrical experiences for audiences and theater-makers alike,” she said.
Both MacMillan and Quinn, who is playing Dona Ana in “Don Juan in Hell,” promise special events tied to performances on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. BYOS (Bring Your Own Shamrock).
“Perhaps the popularity of Irish Theatre and St. Patrick’s Day is the open invitation to all to be part of a community,” Quinn said. “There is a certain inclusivity apparent in all things Irish — a ‘come one, come all’ mentality that is welcoming to everyone, not just the Irish.”
FYI
“Once Upon A Bridge,” Inis Nua Theatre Co., March 6-24, Louis Bluver Theater at the Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila., 215-454-9776
“Don Juan in Hell,” Irish Heritage Theatre Co. March 14-24, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila., 215-735-0630 (Plays & Players number) or 215-680-3876 (Irish Heritage number)
